Times 24674 – going nowhere fast!

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 15 minutes, though I was a little distracted by the end of Game 5 of the American League Championship series (that’d be the baseballing, a cricket variant I’ve grown to like since I’ve been in North America). I made a rather spectacular wrong move right at the very beginning, confidently writing a work in to 1 across that was not only wrong, but had the wrong number of letters (FIBREGLASS). Frustrated by that I moved on to 6 across which looked uber-biblical and was starting to despair. Relief occurred in the bottom half of the grid, and it was a pretty steady solve from the bottom up, though my last entries were the 14s (had to check that I had 14 across right before starting on the blog). Away we goooo…

Across
1 S,TALE,MATE: I saw “Small lie” and couldn’t get FIB out of my head, had to come back to this later
6 JACOB: A,C in JOB. I remember hearing of the story of Job, didn’t realise he had a whole book.
9 C,RIPPLE
10 FINE ART: NEAR in FIT
11 STANDS,TILL: with ARREST being the definition. Crafty clue, I was going in all sorts of directions until I got some checking letters
12 Z(unknown),E,AL: I was trying to make something of the first and last letters of ENTHUSIASM until the obvious answer hit me
14 CHEAT: E in CHAT – my last in. Didn’t know ROOK could mean s card sharp
15 STAMP DUTY: STAMP then DEPUTY without the EP (which is then not the extended play record in 14 down)
16 RATION,ALE: the very thought makes me shudder
18 TON(fashion),E(note),R(right): something you can goop on your face
20 NEAT: A in NET
21 WEATHERMAN: (WARN ME HEAT)*
25 let’s omit this one from the acrosses
26 IN,GEN,U,E: another dose of bible, but I’ve heard of this book!
27 EGYPT: hidden
28 POLYTHENE: THE in (OPENLY)* – short for polyethylene, in the US, look for a number 2 or 4 in the recycling logo
 
Down
1 SOCKS: SHOCK without H, then S
2 A,NI,MATE: Belfast rather than Ulster to mean Northern Ireland this time
3 EXPEDITION: double def
4 AGENT: remove the R from ARGENT
5 EXFOLIATE: anagram of OF,LATEX,IE
6 JUNG: JUNGLE without LE
7 CHA,TEA,U: two teas and a you!
8 BIT PLAYER: BIT(the part of the drill that does the boring), LAYER(stratum) about P. Nice definition here
13 SPOT HEIGHT: POTHE(r) inside SIGHT. Needed to get this from the wordplay, it’s the number giving height above sea level on a map
14 CHRONIC,LE: the LE coming from the middle of athLEtes
15 SPACESHIP: PACE in S.S., then HIP(joint)
17 TRAGEDY: AGED in TRY
19 NOMINEE: O,MINE in NE
22 TRILL: L in alternating letters in TeRrIbLe – I knew this one, a SHAKE is another name for a TRILL in music
23 NIECE: E in NICE, &lit
24 my down omission

41 comments on “Times 24674 – going nowhere fast!”

  1. George, please go back to the old photo. I hardly recognised you!

    Got into all sorts of strife in the top left: as it were, mated twice and not a lot to go on in the other clues in that corner. 42 minutes.

    Didn’t think much of “tea” in both clue and answer at 7dn; but the lift-and-separate of “power lines” in 8dn was pretty neat. My COD though to 14dn.

    Re yesterday’s talk about the Times CC sub offer: it’s now pretty much working. And you can check your subs details after paying by going to “My Profile” and selecting “My Invoices”. This confirms the free month’s extension is included.

    1. The old photo is old… a friend of mine took my new picture after a bunch of beer and an Indian meal two weeks ago. I think I have that evil “just finished a crossword” look.

      I got the offer in email tonight, might have to check it out.

    2. I don’t have a My Invoices link on My Profile page (unless I’ve gone blind), where is it on yours?
      1. just hover your mouse over the “profile” link on the home page and you will see it..
  2. About 15 minutes for me, and I found it on the easier side of things. Last entry was SPOT HEIGHT for which I needed all the checkers. Over here we call it a ‘spot elevation’, particularly on building plans. Wasn’t familiar with POLYTHENE either but the wordplay was clear. Thanks for that explanation, George. Wasn’t too keen on ‘step on board’ = ‘spaces’, that seems a bit of a stretch. COD to CHRONICLE. Regards to all.
    1. It’s OK if you read it as STEP = PACE “ON BOARD” inside a ship – S.S. It’s appeared a couple of times before I believe.
      1. Thanks George. I read it as a reference to a board games, where your turn might involve moving a few spaces. If it’s appeared before – as SPACES, I mean – I haven’t seen it. The “SS” is a regular guest in these puzzles, of course, so your interpretation seems correct, I just didn’t spot it. Regards.
  3. Fairly straightforward but a bit laboured at 32 minutes. Had the vague feeling that a few of the definitions were slightly off-centre. For example, it might just be fair to describe a spaceship, as opposed to a satellite, as something that orbits, but it seems imprecise, even with a slightly apologetic “perhaps” attached.
  4. Bit of a disaster – not just in the NW, where I required aids all over the place (couldn’t get past ‘checkmate’) and still managed to get one wrong even with aids (‘crimple’ for CRIPPLE), but also at 17, where I was looking for a word meaning ‘leer’ (sic), even though I already had T-A-E-Y. Mmm. Managed a rare correct guess, though (SPOT HEIGHT) so all can’t be bad.
  5. Was mighty pleased to finish this unaided in about 90 minutes (slowed by yet another stupid mispelling – CHEATER) but happiness was short-lived when I saw George’s time (and picture)complete with distractions. Incidentally, I thought that baseball was a variant of rounders – a park game for the uncoordinated – rather than cricket. Wanted LATHE(R)for my short fuss until remembering POTHE(R), but this was my only guess. I too thought CHRONICLE a wonderful clue.
  6. A slow start followed by very steady progress throughout but I ran out of time after 50 minutes with the 6s unresolved. It was 6ac that really scuppered me as I thought of the OT book as HEB(rews) and with the other checkers in place this set me thinking of HECAB which rang a faint bell (I found out later it’s nearly a Queen of Troy rather than anything biblical). On arrival at the office I cheated to get JACOB and then wrote 6dn straight in.

    There was a whole bunch of great clues today.

  7. Finished in what seems to be becoming the usual 20 mins.. thought it might be a pangram for a while but can’t see a q.
    I hope all have noticed that the “articles” page of the crossword club website now has the Grand Final crosswords for download, and accompanying article. Well done, The Times!
    1. I hadn’t noticed so thanks for that. I’d been hoping to read the write-up. Be warned though, they’ve got the links for the finals puzzles arse about face so if you click for the puzzles you get the solutions and vice versa.
    1. Surely all crossword setters cleanse, tone and moisturise as part of their daily routine, whatever their gender.
  9. Just a quick post in praise of the new crossword club.
    After they’d changed it, I found the printed version cryptic
    clues too small, so emailed them asking to increase the text size. I guess others had done too, but now the choice of sizes on the printed cryptic is superb.
    And once they’d fixed the renewal link, that seems to have worked too – as mentioned above – so now paid up till next summer.

    They seem to have become a lot more responsive.

    1. I agree with you. I think that there is now more to like than not like about the new site. And they are more responsive though mind you, they did have a lot to be responsive about 🙂
  10. 45 minutes or so, having wandered about henpecking clues for some time until I got a proper start in the east. The west proved more difficult to crack with last in the unlikely CHRONICLE, which gets my COD. A nice collection of clues I thought.
  11. I finished most of this in 20 minutes, but then got hopelessly stuck with four to go in the NW: STALEMATE, ANIMATE, EXPEDITION, AGENT. I came back after a break and got them immediately, and now can’t see why they caused me so much trouble.
    The only unknown for me was SPOT HEIGHT but it was pretty clear from wordplay.
  12. Only I had decided a small lie was a white lie and couldn’t get that chain of thought out of my head.
  13. 38:24 – Thought it was going to be a hard slog when hardly anything went in the NW, but the last six across clues went straight in on the first pass, and all the down clues in the bottom half followed straight away. Had 6 left (all in the NW) after half an hour. 9 was last in.

    I raised an eyebrow when TEA appeared in the both the clue and the solution in 7, but it’s better than this week’s ST which gave away the entire answer in one clue!

  14. 19:58 .. some really crafty clues in here. Much enjoyed. Last in STAMP DUTY.

    COD I thought the little 24d was very sweet.

    1. I don’t know why I wrote “stamp duty”. My last in was SPOT HEIGHT, which was new to me.
  15. 45 minutes, with a cheat at the end to get 14d, having tried various vowels between the C and R at the start and deciding nothing else would fit… Didn’t get the wordplay for 13 and 14d, in the former case because I’ve never heard POTHER before. COD 2d or 23d.
  16. 6:37 here. 10A was the last one in – on first reading I had thought the solution was going to be a type of sail. When I had all the checking letters I went back to my first thought of FIT around something and saw the solution.
  17. Left NW until last, but completed in 15. Coming at the NW from underneath seemed to make the clues much easier! Couldn’t understand CHRONICLE as a clue, mostly because I didn’t separate “long-lasting record”. I’m not sure I’d have lifted the LE from athletes anyway.
    CoD to CHEETAH for a genuine antique feel: it could easily have been from a 1930’s puzzle.
  18. 8:30, including a scurry back to the printer when I realized that 6 clues were on a second page that I hadn’t picked up.  (A smaller font size would help.)  No time for further comment, alas.
      1. You need to pay to access that site.. I haven’t done the math but I suspect paying for just the crosswords is cheaper 🙂
        BTW, nobody should have trouble printing the daily cryptic on one page. All modern browsers have a “print preview” page that will let you scale it however you wish. Also, your “internet options” menu will let you specify the font and its size if you wish, though this will affect all sites not just the Times one. I set mine for a min. 16pt font and that works well for me.
        It is no good criticising the Times for print problems because nowadays everybody’s pc and printer are different..
        1. I think most people signed up to the Club have automatic access to the other site until the New Year so for those people (including myself) it’s an option for the moment whilst the new site settles in and hopefully its problems are resolved.

          Your point about printing is valid however there were few if any complaints about printing before the launch of the new site and the deluge of complaints only started last Wednesday when the latest version went live without prior notice in order to fix a “problem” that most of us weren’t aware of, assuming it existed in the first place.

  19. Unike Vinyl1 I found this far from dull, with much to admire and amuse.

    20:20 with a couple of minutes of that staring at spot height at the end as the term is unfamiliar and pother is hardly an everyday word.

    COD to the Beatles clue, thanks very much to the setter.

  20. 74 minutes for a mostly straightforward puzzle, but I also had to start at the bottom (of the grid) and work my way up, and I also had to stop thinking of FIB to get 1ac. Last in was RATIONALE, but yes, I have seen it before. Unlike the earlier puzzles this week there was nothing entirely outside my restricted range of experience, except perhaps for SPOT HEIGHT. This was also the entry I was most unsure of, but it fit the crossing letters so well I just put it in, though not entirely convinced that POTHER really was a word. (I now see Chambers has 4 meanings for it!)
  22. 10:20 for me after a horribly slow start, with ZEAL the first answer to go in and BIT PLAYER (a nicely concealed definition which took me far too long to spot) the last. I say 10:20, but I could see the seconds ticking by after I’d clicked on Submit, so it must really have been under 10:15.
  23. About 40 min, with clues running down diagonally as usual and help needed to get CHRONICLE, and then the submit button produced *another* “invalid status 500” … sigh …

    I’m glad to hear that some people are beginning to get a better experience of using the site, but I’m not one of them!

  24. 7:25 on return from holiday – unlike Tony, ZEAL was the last answer written (or rather typed) here.

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