Times 24,708 featuring Julie Andrews’ Dress

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 25 minutes

A puzzle of average difficulty with some good constructions and interesting definitions. Only one real obscurity, the accompaniment to the goats and cuckoo clocks which would not be out of place in a Mephisto. One query at 28A where I cant justify NS=opponents.

Across
1 SALT – S-ALT; small=S; key (on keyboard)=ALT; plenty on the roads at the moment;
3 MACHINE,GUN – (hug nice man)*; Isn’t it the gunner that’s the killer?;
10 ARCTIC,FOX – AR(C)TIC-F-OX; cold=C; articulated lorry=ARTIC; following=F; I’m expecting to see one in the garden soon;
11 WELLS – (s)WELLS; Cathedral city of Somerset near the Mendips;
12 TALONED – (ra)T-ALONE-D; died=D; hawk literally, the wife metaphorically;
13 DIGS,IN – DIG-SIN; I like “greed perhaps” for SIN;
15 THE,GLOVES,ARE,OFF – THE-G-LOVES-ARE-OFF; grand=G; see 12A;
18 WHITER,THAN,WHITE – (win with the heart)*; it wasn’t me, darling – must have been the dogs;
21 MESS-UP – M(oggi)E-PUSS reversed; not me, I’m 18A;
23 IMPETUS – I-M(PET)US(t); I like “dog say” for PET;
26 METAL – (aluminiu)M-ET-AL; ET AL = etc, usw, and so on;
27 PENINSULA – (alpine sun)*; another campaign to go with 7D;
28 GREENSWARD – (a)GREE(NS-WAR)D; opponents=NS? In bridge they’re partners!; the fairway;
29 deliberately omitted – it’s simple in other words;
 
Down
1 SHANTY,TOWN – SHANT-Y-(wont)*; still far too many in the world;
2 LOCAL – LO(w)-CAL(orie);
4 AFFIDAVIT – AFFI(x)-DAVIT; “X” marks the spot Long John;
5 HEXAD – HE(X)AD; “X” marks the vote; a series of six numbers;
6 NEW,AGER – N-E(W)AGER; name=N; keen=EAGER; W from W(illiam); of mysticism and meditation;
7 GALLIPOLI – GALL-I-(I-LOP reversed); disastrous WWI campaign (1915-1916) that failed to capture Istanbul;
8 NOSH – NO-SH; slang for food;
9 DIRNDL – DI(RN)D-L; service=RN=Royal Navy; managed=DID; large=L; think Julie Andrews and opening scene of The Sound of Music;
14 AFTERSHAVE – cryptic definition – the word “after” in clue and answer is disconcerting when solving;
16 EPICENTRE – EPIC-ENTER changed to ENTRE; the source of an earthquake;
17 STATIONER – (into tears)*; it’s that impending VAT increase, you know;
19 EPSILON – NO-LISPE(d) all reversed; Violet Elizabeth Bott no doubt;
20 WIPING – WI(PIN)G;
22 PAPAW – PA(PA)W; more usually “pawpaw”;
24 TAUPE – TA(U)PE; a brownish-grey colour;
25 deliberately omitted – get it and be pleased with yourself;

84 comments on “Times 24,708 featuring Julie Andrews’ Dress”

  1. Biddlecom et al

    Why do we have to find an example in previous puzzles? Is this puzzle an organic, evolving method of communication (like the English language itself) or are we just a bunch of lawyers sifting through the old cases looking for precedents? Are we like the bridge player who looks down at is hand and decides to do something creative or are we more like the chess player who has memorised the openings up to the nineteenth move?
    The allusions to the Guardian and the Indie perhaps have more to do with the spirit in which the solvers approach the puzzles (an open mind!) than the setters.

    1. In a way, I agree with you. Too much rigour and convention can become tiresome. I was solving a Times puzzle from the 60’s the other night and it was distinctly freewheeling and highly enjoyable.

      But there is no simple opposition between rigour and imagination, logic and an open mind. And to disparage those who are dissatisfied with a clue device that calls for a metaphysical backflip rather than a deduction as closed-minded or hindbound is, to be honest, the kind of thing I used to indulge in during late night sessions with my RCP mates in the bar of the Flying Picket: “anyone who doesn’t agree with us is a reactionary old fart constrained by conventional thought – first up against the wall on the glorious day.”

      There’s poetry in rigour, too.

      Maybe The Times puzzle has become a little too dominated by established practice. It’s a discussion worth having, but better had without too much sneering or superciliousness. The idea that readers of one newspaper have open minds while the readers of another paper don’t is, well, shot through with the very same conventional thinking of which you complain.

      By the way, you’re not Polly Toynbee, are you?

        1. As you’re agog… I was the sort of pet non-believer of the local revolutionary communists. They tolerated me (probably until the glorious day). Funnily enough, they were great company. And drank a lot.

          As for Polly Toynbee… oh, I’ve lost the will to explain. Google her.

      2. The much-discussed use of unindicated def. by example is clear evidence for me that the Times crossword editor is perfectly happy to ignore convention if he prefers something else, and in private e-mails he has been critical about “solving by rote”.
    2. You don’t have to find an example in previous puzzles unless you’re claiming that something now clearly not allowed at the Times would be OK at the Indie or the Guardian. There must be 30-plus crossword setters (mostly of independent mind) working for the combination of Guardian, Independent and Times. If any of them really thought that “opponents” was a valid way of indicating NS, I think they’d have used it by now. Some of them will be reading this, so they have the chance to prove me wrong by using it.

      When a setter finds something original that makes sense, they normally get praise from me and other bloggers (and I’m sure, from their crossword editor).

  2. I don’t know whether the cold has frozen my brain, but I really struggled with this, having to cheat mercilessly to complete the last 9 in the bottom half. Better luck tomorrow!
  3. Sir,
    It seems that you know a lot of these setters by name and I suppose you are in regular contact with them. With this knowledge the whole ‘web site changing its clue to support your side of the arguement’ episode becomes invalid. You may feel that the idea of North and South being opponents (particularly banged next to a war reference) is not sensible, but quite frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
    1. If you didn’t give a damn … (think about it)

      Yes, I know most of the Times setters, if having met them at least once counts. I’m in regular contact with about a third of them. But the Times crossword editor does not jump because I tell him to jump. If he changes a clue, it’s because he thinks there’s a good reason to change it.

  4. I’ve just solved the online version, and the clue for 28ac refers to partners, not opponents. Obviously it was wrong originally and has been amended.
  5. ok, you have the best blog on the crossword and I’ve got a lot of time for anything you say on it. You just ain’t right on this one. Soz for the cross’d words.
    1. Good barney, though.

      Please use some sort of monicker under your posts, even if you don’t want to sign in. Just an initial or something.

      Sometimes we get several ‘anons’ and it’s really hard to have any sort of conversation if you dont’ know if it’s one person or several.

      1. Several: So far, 5 different IP addresses today, so almost certainly 5 different people.
  6. Well now, that’s quite a debate that’s been going on. I confess that I didn’t even notice the obvious oddity of ‘NS’ as opponents instead of partners in what I took to be a reference to bridge, so my thickness prevented me from needing to form any strong opinions on this. For what it’s worth, I fall on the side of those who see it as an error, now corrected. I finished in about 25 minutes, ending with ARCTIC FOX, since the ‘artic’ is not a common usage over here. The DIRNDL is probably more common over here than in the UK, though, since every October there are Oktoberfest celebrations by those (many) of German extraction in the US replete with beer, sausages, leiderhosen and dirndls. Good fun. Only quibble today is the already noted unusual ‘after’ repetition, otherwise I liked a lot of the definitions today, esp. the ‘shocking scene’ for EPICENTRE. Regards to all.
  7. I too was knifed, so struggled to finish in 46 min. I play bridge but had no qualms about N & S as opponents in for example war: American Civil, Korean, England v Scotland … To say nothing of the North and South Islands here, well not quite war yet, but watch this space.
  8. Oh and PS. Have we had a change of font, or was there something iffy about that shiraz. Not an easy read.
  9. Yes, I went down this route at 15ac and so DNF. Rather sad to see that the phrase was, nonetheless, not an utterly inappropriate description of some of the comments above: a regrettable change from the usual ‘gentlemanly’, perceptive and witty elucidation of my failings.
  10. Finished correctly, but after an hour only about a quarter was filled in, the rest untimed afterwards. I had a great deal of difficulty with the long across clues, and after them, the rest was OK. Last in were AFTERSHAVE (also bothered by the repeated AFTER) and TAUPE, and I checked SALT and TAUPE with a dictionary before I dared look at the blog. I also wasn’t convinced that all children lisp, and how do you lisp ‘no’ anyway? COD to WELLS (for ‘south only once’).
  11. Thanks to anonymous the NS warrior for questioning the orthodoxy. I do believe that, in spite of the frequent pontificating, there is no such thing as crossword infallibility. In his own words, PB said “OK – I’m hopeless at spotting when people are kidding.” Maybe we should all remember that.
    1. To be fair it is hard to pick up any nuances on the Internet. It is very easy to suffer an attack of “Internet rage,” as the new crossword website’s forum demonstrates.
      I recommend a thick skin and not to take any of it too seriously. It’s just a few folk with time to spare, talking about a trivial pastime, after all.
  12. Like other people, I was held up by putting THE KNIVES ARE OUT even though I couldn’t see how it worked, also by putting MELD instead of MERE, thinking there might be a Lake Eld somewhere. Once those were corrected got 14 down immediately without noticing the repetition of AFTER, but thought the clue was excruciating, like much aftershave in fact. Sorry for late post – didn’t see the final answers until this morning. (That often happens.)
  13. Did this late due to adverse weather conditions and tube strikes, and finished in 15 minutes, so about normal. Didn’t get in the least bit excited over NS, just assumed it was American Civil War (Gaskell, TV miniseries et al). Sorry everyone!
    DIRNDL, after this year’s visit to Oberammergau and Austria, was a doddle. I even know why the apron is tied in different places.
    CoD for me was TALONED for the story value.
  14. Eveyone has long since stopped caring I am sure, but, as a Times setter, I am appalled at the idea that myself or any of my colleagues would ever use “opponents” to refer to the Poles. It’s never been used before because it is wrong, simply.
    On the other hand we are all human and do make mistakes from time to time and plainy this was an example of one …

    I just solved this puzzle btw and embarrassingly had to give up on DIRNDL!!

      1. Hello and thanks for that. I doubt people have stopped caring. I’m told that the Times published a correction the next day, which helps to remove doubt. However, it is fun to see people generating all types of steam around what was I’m sure a simple mistake.

        I doubt you were alone with DIRNDL but it does help if you do the bar crosswords because you never dismiss a possible answer just because it seems to contain a strange combination of letters such as RNDL. I certainly checked it in Chambers before I took it to be the answer!

      2. Good for you! Thanks for your honesty and openness.

        I flunked with “Wales” (swales being a town?) – didn’t catch the “swells”). Anyhoo, fun on my New Years Eve.

Comments are closed.