Times 24717

Solving time: 61 mins. Nothing too difficult, I don’t think. The only assistance I needed was to look up Mr Smollett’s first name. I’d been staring at the NW corner for about 10 minutes, unable to gain a foothold until then.

I seemed to go in fits and starts today. It took quite a while to get going, and I got stuck several times. Overall, despite not quite making it in under the hour, I was quite pleased to finish under my own steam. Although, yet again, I mistyped an answer so officially registered 1 wrong – I seem to do that a lot. I really ought to check the grid before I submit it.

I think my time would have been reduced considerably if either of the two long ones down the middle had fallen at the start. I could see that 4 was an anagram ending in ATION, and the 5 was probably a cd involving turning, but both stubbornly refused to come until some time later.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 S(NOW + Boats)OUND – My last in. I failed to spot the definition as ‘cut off by fall’ – I was looking at ‘Immediately’ instead.
6 DORIC = ICe after ROD rev. An order of classical architecture.
9 B(RIG)AND
10 CALYPSO = C + (PLAYS)* + SO
11 deliberately omitted
12 ROW(DINES)S
13 DRAM + A
14 SPIDERMAN = (DREAM)* in SPIN – I’ve not heard the term, but I imagine it refers to those incredible men who you see in black and white photos, eating their lunch perched on girders hundreds of feet in the air. Here’s the great Harold Lloyd demonstrating how not to do it.
17 CHECKLIST = “CZECH LISZT” &ltgroan&gt
18 Orangey Colour Heavily Resembling Earth – A nice little &lit clue, if a little telegraphed.
19 DOBERMANN = (BAN MODERN)*
22 U-TRAP = United + PART rev – I threw U-BEND in hastily at first, but luckily I solved 23 before looking at the checkers so realised my mistake.
24 ORIGAMI = GIRO rev + A + MI
25 TWINSET = WIN in TEST rev
26 S + mOGGY
27 NONENTITY = (N + NOT YET IN)* – I guess we can blame Oscar Wilde for the superfluous sexism displayed here.
Down
1 SABOT = TOBiAS rev – I had to look up Tobias Smollett as I hadn’t heard of him or the clog.
2 OR(I + GI)NATE
3 BLACK + JACK – For those not familiar with Bowls, the jack is the small white ball that you have to get your large black balls as close as possible to.
4 UNDERESTIMATION = (NOTED MINIATURES)*
5 DICK WHITTINGTON – A well-known pantomime (hence seasonal show). I’ve no idea how well-known this is outside the UK, but for those who may not know, there’s an important scene where Dick is leaving London but stops when he fancies he hears the church bells singing ‘Turn again, Dick Whittington’.
6 DELHI = H + LED all rev + I
7 RU(Poor European)E – The currency of India, plus several other surrounding countries.
8 CLO(I + SON)NE – Not a word I knew, but it was deducible from the wordplay.
13 DECIDUOUS = DUO in ICED rev + US – fall being the American word for autumn.
15 EVOLUTION – cd, although only slightly cryptic.
16 MAtaHARI’S + HI
20 BilLING
21 hidden
23 PATSY = PAY about benefiTS

39 comments on “Times 24717”

  1. Light relief after all the head-scratching of the last couple of days. The two long down clues both came pretty easily and helped get everything moving. Last to fall was the SW corner; I’m not sure that an ORIGAMI expert would ever use newspaper, but that’s a minor quibble. 30 minutes.
  2. 69 minutes, with quite a bit wasted by putting ‘decadence’ in at 13 dn, which meant I was probably the only person solving this puzzle to finsih with ORIGAMI, SOGGY and BLING.

    21 is also an anagram of ‘a dyer’, although the presence of ‘fibre’ precludes the clue from being parsed as such. Nevertheless, that was how I got it. Only really tricky one was CLOISONNE; my favourite was 1ac.

  3. 24″, the NE sector proving recalcitrant until I FINALLY remembered ‘cloisonne’. I also put in ‘Hanoi’–couldn’t think of another city ending in I, and justified the choice post hoc by thinking (if that’s the word) H=hospital ANO=on a reversed=was superior to. Before reading the explanation, I was going to ask re 21d, ‘Why “fibre”?’–I saw ‘a dyer’ as anagrist. In fact, I entered a half-dozen words like that, e.g. 1ac, only getting the clue afterward; or, in this case, not.
    I,too, would cavil at ‘newspaper’ in 24ac, although ‘paper folded’ is a bit too obvious.
  4. Much closer to the usual level of difficulty at 34 minutes. Not sure about the strict logic of “counterpoint” in 17a but the pun is groanworthy enough to make it impervious to minor quibbling.
  5. A relative walk in the park after the last few. About 15 minutes, ending with SOGGY. I don’t know the story of DICK WHITTINGTON, but he was apparent from the crossers and having appeared before, somewhere. Didn’t know Mr. Smollett’s given name either, and we call U TRAPS simply ‘traps’. We use ‘autumn’ and ‘fall’ interchangeably, and I thought you did also, so I’m a tad surprised there. Like the other Kevin above, I had thought READY was an anagram of ‘a dyer’, but Dave is clearly correct, it seems. For COD, 4D is very good for a 15 letter anagram with a very nice surface, but I’ll go with MAHARISHI, which is very clever. Regards to all.
  6. Nice ‘n’ easy today though had to deduce Cloisonne. 18 minutes. COD Checklist for the solemn rather infantile sense of humour that accords with my own.
  7. Wow! An unaided finish. (There must be a Sibelius joke in there somewhere). Not sure if CHECKLIST is brilliant or desperate so COD to MAHARISHI.
    Lesser solvers will spend time wondering if MAG backwards in ORIGAMI is a reference to newspaper in the clue. I certainly did.
    1. There are lesser and least, Barry. There was I (with my ‘decadence’ at 13dn) trying to persuade myself that those clever Orientals had invented a paper folding art called ‘nacsami’, where ‘nasc’ stands for ‘cheque (sic) = scan, returned’. I must have been Brahms and Liszt …
  8. After the arctic gales of the last couple of days a gentle breeze done in 22 minutes. i think there will be some very fast times today. well blogged. It all seemed to fit into place quite nicely
    Sounds ominous for tomorrow
  9. 35 minutes actual solving time but that would not be taking account of the 22 minutes towards the end that I sat staring blankly at 6ac, 6dn,10ac and 8dn and making no progress. Eventually, having thought of ROD for “bar” at 6ac it all fell into place though I have never heard of CLOISONNE.
  10. A great relief after some serious brain racking earlier in the week. Kept expecting things to gum up, but happily finished in 18 min. No outstanding clues, but no quibbles either.
  11. 7:18 for this – top of the club leaderboard for the moment, but probably not for long.

    Seems like a good puzzle, though up against some tough competition this week. CHECKLIST raised a laugh.

    We last had CLOISONNE in 24547 on 26 May this year.

  12. 10:36 solving time, though the leaderboard shows 11:02, and I now understand what the pause button does and does not pause. Might have been faster if I had looked at the two long downs earlier.

    Like KevinGregg, I put in Hanoi at 6D, but I did it without any crossing letters because it looked as though the wordplay would give something starting with H and ending with I. Good thing that H_R_C and C_N_P_O are so implausible.

    I liked 14A, even though I had no idea that a SPIDERMAN was a sort of building worker.

  13. Almost, if not quite, a doddle after yesterday’s ultra-toughie – that is to say somewhere between 40 and 45 minutes for me. There were some nicely deceptive surface readings , I thought, e.g. for ORIGINATE and SNOWBOUND, which were my last two entries, in that order. CHECK LIST was chuckle-worthy, and I liked the wordplay for MAHARISHI, an easier clue perhaps for those of whose formative years included what might be called the Beatles’ “Indian Period”, when the Maharishi was as much a staple of tabloid coverage as Posh and Becks in more recent times. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if there are some who’ve never heard of him, let alone that he styled himself The Great Leader. I didn’t know the term U-TRAP, but it was eminently deducible from wordplay.

  14. At last! A puzzle I managed to finish unaided (and all correct) – it seems a little while since the last, and after yesterday’s dismal attempt I was ready to give up.

    Glad to say, I understood all the cryptic defs, but did guess at some of the literal (hadn’t heard of Mr Smollett, or that meaning of SPIDERMAN, or CLOISONNE). Read ‘fall’ in 13d as just the leaves falling, not appreciating the ‘autumn=fall’ bit.

    COD to 1ac for its topicality.

    I can get on with the rest of my day now…have a good weekend, everyone!

  15. As others have said, back to standard fare. 20 minutes to solve. An opportunity missed at 1D to use the well known mathematician Tobias Dantzig rather than the obscure literary figure – some things never change.

    Some short memories here over CLOISONNE. I was surprised to see it again in such relatively quick time.

    On its own a decent enough puzzle but suffers of course in comparison to the previous two days – such is life.

  16. Somewhat easier today, 16mins, but still some very satisfactory clues with neat misdirection. Particularly liked 1ac, 17ac, 5dn, 16dn. no problem with Smollet, my first in, or with 4dn but “seasonal show” = panto in 5dn took a lot longer to come.
  17. Thanks, Dave, for the blog and for putting me right on 21 (I’d seen it as an anagram of ‘a dyer’), 16 (I hadn’t appreciated where the ‘hi’ came from) and the extra US significance of ‘fall’ in 13dn (I’d just got as far as leaves falling). A pleasant solve, in less than an hour, significantly helped by remembering CLOISONNE, which I wouldn’t otherwise have known. I’m amazed at Peter’s ability to crossreference clues so quickly and such is my admiration that I am prepared to believe that he can do this without any aids …
  18. After the tortuous paths of yesterday this was a straightforward stroll for me. 27 minutes. I knew Smollett’s first name so 1d went in straight away, then 1a. It’s always a comforting moment when the top bit is sorted. After that everything fell in easily.
  19. A much more straightforward 15 minutes today, though once again 1a was the last in (I couldn’t bring myself to put BLACKJACK in at 3d, not splitting “bowls” and “game”). I though DICK W. and EVOLUTION had pretty weak clues, but loved CALYPSO and MAHARISHI, the latter getting my CoD.
  20. Once I got going all this fell into place easily enough, in an hour with several interruptions. However, made my way through all the acrosses at first before filling in 1d to get me started, so I was beginning to sweat a little. Also made life tough for myself my initially going for BLACKBALL at 3d, until I was left staring at an untenable 17ac. Didn’t understand 5d until I read the blog, but what else could it be?
  21. 10:06 here, much better after a pretty slow week for me. I spent a minute or so working out the long anagram at 4D at the start, which turned out to be time well spent. 5D went straight in so that opened up the whole of the grid.
  22. It looks as though this site has been banned by Thailand’s internet police, since the only way I could avoid a notice in Thai to that effect was by going through an encrypted proxy server. What subversive activity has been going on here?

    As others have commented, far more straightforward today, though after I’d filled the left-hand side in 20 minutes I initially made heavy weather of completing the right. However, after an interruption to chat to a friend, I went back and had no difficulty completing the gaps in 5 minutes. CLOISONNE, DORIC and PATSY were the last entries.

    1. It looks as though this site has been banned by Thailand’s internet police, since the only way I could avoid a notice in Thai to that effect was by going through an encrypted proxy server. What subversive activity has been going on here?

      Perhaps the cryptic clues are being mistaken for coded messages. You know, “The eagle flies at dawn but eats no fish” could be an emergency comm. from M to 007 or it could be 11 across on a Wednesday.

  23. Slowed down in the South East as I couldn’t think beyond U Bend and hadn’t heard of Spiderman or Patsy, at least not in the intended context.
    Louise
  24. 10:53 SNOWBOUND raised a wry smile after the weather and traffic chaos we’ve had in Scotland this week, and a grimace for CZECH LIZST.
    I only know CLOISONNE from previous crosswords , and like Jimbo, it sprang to mind from a recent one.
  25. This felt like a real struggle, particularly in the SE, but I finished it in 22 minutes so it must have been pretty standard stuff!
    COD to CHECKLIST. I like the cheesy ones.
  26. 21:02 online but with the site spasmodically refusing to recognise keystrokes which caused enough problems for me to claim a time of 19:59.

    I haven’t yet had a chance to try yesterday’s and Wednesday’s so can’t comment on how this compares.

  27. 41 minutes. Can’t say I found it that easy, but thought it a well-constructed, enjoyable puzzle with a welcome smattering of humour. Good to have a change from the usual U-boat, and look forward to a range of plumbing accessories (S-bends, P-traps and the like) in the future.
  28. 12 minutes, found this pretty breezy though I was wired in the middle of the night solving. CLOISONNE from wordplay, SABOT from definition
  29. hello it’s me anonymous – no not mr crossword rage of recent times, but the one who sometimes comes on and asks stupid questions.

    my understanding of &lit clues was that the WHOLE clue had to be both the word play AND the definition – so it depends on one’s reading of the clue how one sees it. In 18ac only part of the clue is the definition (orangey colour) and the rest of it at the level of the definition is just empty verbiage.Surely that just makes it a dodgy clue – the fact that even I got it just reflects that it was an easy clue. Or am I missing something? Anyway, I’m not in a rage about it!

    1. For a clue to be truly &lit, the entire clue should be able to be read as both the wordplay and the definition. While ‘Orangey colour’ could be read as a definition on its own, ochre is orangey-brown, therefore resembling earth so the whole clue can be treated as a definition. Plus of course all the words within the clue form part of the wordplay, so it would certainly be classed as a true &lit.

      You’re right about it being quite straightforward though, I would think it was an immediate write-in for most solvers.

    1. As so often, I can immediately answer my own question, it is “with decoration” of course.

Comments are closed.