Times 24695 – “O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag……

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 32 minutes

Music: Altan, Local Ground

Another game of two halves. Having put in about three quarters of the answers in less than ten minutes, I was a bit chagrined at not being able to finish it off quickly. But I do think the last clues were at least somewhat tricky, although one of them I should have seen instantly.

I don’t really know what to make of this type of puzzle. It could be frustrating for beginners, who can probably get most of it but may not be able to finish.

As usual, the obvious ones are not blogged, although sometimes it’s hard to say what might be obvious. You can put many of them in from the literals and crossing letters, and still not understand the cryptics.

Across
1 PARENTHESIS, PARE + N + THESIS. Always nice to start with an easy one.
7 Obvious, and you’ve got two out of three letters.
9 ENDURANCE, EN + DURANCE. I couldn’t remember Shackleton’s ship, and never heard of the Rhone tributary, so this was tough going for me.
10 Obvious, three out of five letters, what more do you need?.
11 PROPOSE, PRO(P,O)SE. Or maybe it’s the other O, hard to say.
12 TANK TOP, double definition.
13 Obvious, three out of five letters here.
15 IMMORALLY, IM + M[edical]O[fficer] + RALLY.
17 OVEREAGER, OVER + EAGER. Apparently another allusion to ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’, which has come up a lot lately.
19 Obvious, three out of five you have.
20 SNIPPED, SNIP(P)ED. ‘Sniped’ is not the first thing you think of for ‘was critical’, but certainly fits.
22 Obvious, four out of seven letters. If still stuck, see 16.
24 IMAGO, I(M)AGO. A very tricky one, you have to parse ‘monarch’ as a butterfly, and know the technical name for the adult stage. At least we’re wise to the Shakespeare theme by now.
25 TRAGEDIES, TR(AGED)IES. The theme of the puzzle, in various senses.
27 Obvious, two out of three letters.
28 TROJAN HORSE, cryptic definition, and a good one.
 
Down
1 PIE, double definition where ‘a piece of cake’ = ‘easy as pie’. Not so easy for me, however.
2 RADIO, cryptic definition, and one that had me quite stumped until I recalled these two characters occurred in the radio alphabet. Kind of a reverse chestnut, since you are usually trying to get the names of the letters.
3 NERVOUS, N(ERV)OUS. I couldn’t parse this as I solved, although I saw the answer readily enough. It is apparently E[dward] R[ex Anglorum] V, not an abbreviation you often see. Correct me if I’m wrong!
4 HINDERING, HI(anagram of END)RING. Another obvious answer, although you might imagine that ‘broken end’ means the ‘n’ from ‘broken’. That’s what I thought as I solved it, but my answer is correct anyway.
5 Obvious, three out of five letters in place.
6 SEMINAR, NIMES backwards on A R[iver].
7 DECATHLON, anagram of HEAT + COLD on N.
8 DOWN PAYMENT, DOWN + anagram of AN EMPTY. Another cryptic to be worked out later.
11 PATRON SAINT, anagram of NATION’S PART, a bit of an &lit.
14 PREDICATE, P(CIDER backwards)ATE. Not the first word you think of for ‘claim’, although that seems to be the root meaning of the verb. Most speakers would think of the noun first.
16 MARIJUANA, MARI(JUAN)A. ‘Maria’ is not necessarily a Spanish woman, although ‘Juan’ is certainly a Spanish man.
18 EXPLOIT, double definition, and one I was amazingly dull at coming up with.
19 MACBETH, anagram of MATCH containing BE. The literal requires familiarity with the Curse of MacBeth
21 DITTO, D(IT + T)O. A rather busy cryptic, and it is not clear if the literal ‘copy’ is meant as a noun or a verb. Either might work.
21 PRIOR, double definition, one an allusive reference to 17th-century poet Matthew Prior, who was active well into the 18th century.
26 Obvious, two out of three letters, and not many words that will fit.

40 comments on “Times 24695 – “O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag……”

  1. Not much to say about this other than to agree that some were quite tricky. IMAGO, I think, cropped up not too long ago. Didn’t understand the ERV in NERVOUS until seeing blog – seems right to me. Cluing EAGER by reference to the oysters in The Walrus and the Carpenter seems a bit of a stretch, though easy enough to guess from the definition without knowing the poem by heart. 29 minutes.
  2. Similar story: 43 minutes, with around a third of that spent on 5 and 12 in the NE and 14 and 24 in the SW. Didn’t know IMAGO in its entomological sense and didn’t fathom the wordplay for OVEREAGER (the relevant text for which is given below). A similar standard to Saturday’s overall.

    ‘But four young Oysters hurried up,
    All eager for the treat:
    Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
    Their shoes were clean and neat–
    And this was odd, because, you know,
    They hadn’t any feet.’

  3. Rather a lot of general knowledge needed for this one, and I ended up stuck in the ice in the NW corner mainly because I couldn’t figure out ENDURANCE. Thanks to vinyl for being alert to Matthew Prior; I was scratching my head wondering how ‘in 17th century’ produced RI. Got there in the end, but in a slow time of 53 minutes.
  4. Took about 30 minutes, but the delay was due to sloppy handwriting, the last entry being EXPLOIT, because I thought the crossing P was an A. Arrgh. I should write more neatly. Otherwise, not too tough. Regards to all.
  5. Much the same tale as others so far with the last 20 of 50 minutes spent on a handful of clues. I don’t think much of 17ac, I never heard of the poet Prior and was distracted by “young woman” in 12, though I suppose “might” and the question mark have all bases covered between them.
  6. Spotted the Walrus connection at 17ac but (assuming it’s a double/cryptic def) still can’t quite work out what the first word of the clue is doing. Done = tricked (as they all are, both large and small)?
    1dn is similarly, though not as deeply, obscure.
    But I guess it all depends on what you happen to know and what you don’t: e.g., 19dn was, for me, a great clue. Anyone else (early on) trying to find a Spanish gall called Methae (16dn)?
    26 minutes; not all of it happy.
  7. 8:27 – a bit of a fits and starts time, with the NW corner last in, partly from the silly typing of MERVOUS at 3 but also from dimness at 1, 2 and 4. I guess the basis for Durance is “most Times solvers will have been to SE France on holiday” – the reason I remembered it. If it crossed the NIMES in 6D, I think I’d call it unfair.
  8. NW caused me trouble! Mental fixations (1dn:’pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man’; 2dn: NATO alphabet rather than radio call signs) and ignorance of ill-fated vessels and Rhone tributaries brought me to a halt for several minutes. But got there in the end and good to have time again to tackle crossword in the morning rather than late at night!
  9. Duncehood left me with too many guessed answers for this to be enjoyable but MACBETH something of a consolation.
  10. Somewhere over 20 minutes, with more than half the time spent on the NW, where I thought 4 of the 5 down clues bordered on the dodgy, with OVEREAGER and TANK TOP (why young woman?) added to the mix. ENDURANCE as a guess for the ship (not knowing the river and puzzling over en and du as possible French contributions. PIE is a horrid clue, and I can’t see how ERV in NERVOUS is derived from anything that counts as general knowledge.
    PRIOR was also unknown as a poet, but what else could it be? I also thought “cut” was superfluous in 13ac.
    Positives? I thought 28 was a decent enough cryptic definition, but PATRON SAINT stood out as my CoD for a neat &lit sort of clue.
      1. I can see the logic in a way, but can’t find the abbreviation anywhere in a foray online. We’re used to ER, of course, but ER11 looks a bit odd (E11R is surely more common) and admittedly hard to use in in a crossword. ERVI? HRIV? They all look a bit odd, and certainly unfamiliar. Just a stretch too far in this context, I think.
  11. 26 minutes. Like others above, I was tempted to follow the false trail in 23 down, trying to work out why RI meant “in the 17th century”; then realized it was referring to Matthew Prior. Perhaps his Jinny the Just used to solve crosswords:

    For the idiom of words very little she heeded,
    Provided the matter she drove at succeeded,
    She took and gave languages just as she needed.

  13. I struggled over the line in 50 minutes. It must have been a day for obtuseness; I didn’t get EXPLOIT till near the end either and had gaps everywhere until the last 10 minutes. ERV is on my list of English monarchs (willy, willy, harry, steve etc) & Prior on my list of poets, so they didn’t trouble me for as long as they might otherwise have (once I stopped trying to parse “in 17th century”).

    Count me amongst those who have holidayed in the South of France; my abiding memory of the Durance is Les Pénitents des Mées.

  14. Almost crushed to ice with Endurance. Also went with Pat for some time from ‘pat-a-cake’ and the “easy” sense. Came out at 32 minutes. I don’t know that I’d agree with the next line of vinyl1’s header from ‘The Waste Land’ – ‘It’s so elegant, so intelligent…’Some at least a bit forced or esoteric.
  15. 32 minutes. Several moments of puzzlement en route (especially ‘overeager’ and ‘prior’), but they didn’t slow me up much.
    I agree with the blogger that 28 is a clever cryptic definition (very cryptic in all respects) but I have some minor quibbles. I don’t see the function of ‘cut and’ in 13; ‘in’ in the double definition of 5 is grammatically awkward after a sentence definer, and 2 is quite lame. Still, the trickier moments made for an enjoyable solve.
    1. Cut’s existence puzzled me until I realised it meant cut pasta into two bits (pas and ta) and then rearrange the two bits; so it’s a meta jumble rather than an outright jumble. I thought it rather clever, since without it, the surface isn’t much more than cold spaghetti.
  16. 18:21 .. I rather enjoyed this one. Happy to have my general knowledge tested and extended (Matthew Prior) once in a while, especially when the GK is no impediment to solving.

    The Walrus and the Carpenter was read to me when a young child. I cried myself to sleep and still haven’t quite got over it. Poor little blighters.

  17. Very slow today. Resorted to aids for the last few after an hour. Was left with 14/18/20/23/28, some which I clearly should have got, but I think my brain had given up by then.
    I spotted the allusion in 2 immediately, but I couldn’t fit NATO phonetic alphabet into 5 letters and moved on. Ended up needing all the crossing letters before the penny dropped.
    Let’s hope I do a little better tomorrow.
  18. No time, as I was forced to work and field phone calls throughout, but didn’t feel too difficult, and I finished which was an improvement on many days last week!

    The NW corner was my last in, where I was somewhat 3d about entering 3d, not being able to work out where the ERV came from. For 9ac I kept wanting to enter ENDEAVOUR, despite it not to the best of my knowledge being ill fated.

    COD 11d which, while obvious, was nicely done.

  19. 38 min, well over half spent on the SE corner which somehow eluded me even though I got other apparently difficult answers quite quickly.

    Call me sad (I call myself sad too), but I actually know “The Walrus and the Carpenter” off by heart, having learnt it as a child and never forgotten it.

  20. Same old story here – didn’t think much of OVEREAGER oysters or having to endure tributaries of the Rhone. 25 minutes after a difficult round of golf. The rest was straightforward enough.
  21. Nice to see the little oysters putting in an appearance again.
    I know complaints about homophones are legion, but I don’t think the vowel sounds in 26dn are the same in any dialect.
    I was distinctly unhappy with ENDURANCE, as I couldn’t make sense of the ERV in NERVOUS, and knew that the phonetic alphabet is used for much more than RADIO communications. When I achieve world dictatorship, I shall issue an edict prohibiting all geographers, botanists and geologists from becoming crossword setters. Would anyone else care to add to the list?
    1. My edict would only ban puzzles that rely on an absurdly biased set of knowledge. You liked the oysters, the previous commenter didn’t. In this puzzle, I can see sport, history, geography, nature and literature, without looking very hard.

      Si vs. see: I can’t think of a language that has both words. Italian si and English see are plenty close enough for me (and homophone critic Jimbo too, it seems).

      1. You are quite right. I think I was over-reacting to my own areas of ignorance. I hereby withdraw my edict (which would never have applied to mathematicians, physicists, engineers or chemists).
  22. I was on the setter’s wavelength from the off today and completed this in about 25 minutes. Didn’t understand all the answers mind you (PRIOR, OVEREAGER…)! My only real trouble was in the SW corner with OVEREAGER, SNIPPED and PREDICATE the last three in. Thought MANSE was a lovely clue.
  23. 6:43 online. My first experience of solving the cryptic against the clock on the new site, and apart from my typing it was fine.

    Did not fully understand NERVOUS until coming here.

  24. Had to look up ENDURANCE thence RADIO became quite clear. Quite a good run in short order but still can’t fathom SNIPPED….a new on on me. Liked a lot the Scottish play clue which I got right off along with TROJAN HORSE and MANSE and IMAGO. I had presumed NERVOUS and was relieved and enlightened by the explanation in Vinyl’s blog.
    1. ‘sniped’ as in ‘Frankie Boyle snipes at famous people’. Is it a British v American English thing?
      1. Do you remember Gore putting down Bush in the pre-Election debate, “No need to get snippy?” Amusing somehow.
        1. Yup, I remember the debate (as opposed to mis-remember). I see it now on reviewing the clue. SNIPED (with the meaning of criticize) and the added ‘P’ from POWER = SNIPPED (cut off) So, no British/North American differences here.
          Thank you gentlemen.
  25. Surely the butterfly is a Monarch rather than a monarch. So is this clue sound? It would have been quite easy to have ‘Monarch for example ultimately …’ and I wonder why the setter didn’t do this. In either form the surface is less than smooth.
    1. Oxford, Chambers and Collins are all happy with “monarch” in their dictionaries. That’s good enough for me (and presumably the setter and editor).
      1. Well fair enough then. I never realised that these butterflies had no capitals, because that is not the case in all the butterfly reference books I know.

        I see that Chambers gives purple emperor not Purple Emperor, even though that butterfly is quite rare. And it doesn’t even mention the even rarer Glanville Fritillary, which saves it from having to make a decision. You’d think that at a certain point capitals would appear. But it’s white admiral and painted lady, with no mention (in C at any rate) of the Mazarine Blue or Wood White.

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