Times 24730 – A snowbound solve

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 37 minutes

Music: Anne Briggs, The Time Has Come

Here in Manhattan, we are having a serious blizzard. Right now we are getting about three or four inches of snow an hour, and it looks like we’ll get well more than a foot by the time it’s over. Fortunately, I just made it back from Connecticut before the storm set in, so I am on duty to blog my assigned puzzle.

Tonight’s puzzle is a quite easy, with neither elaborate cryptics nor obscure answers. My speed was slow only because I can never see the obvious, and I expect our usual crew to put up some very fast times on this one.

Across
1 ACHILLES, AC(HILL)ES, a bit of a chestnut, one that I was very slow to recall, wanting to use RAF.
9 UNIVERSE, UN(I)VERSE[d]. Note to beginners, current is almost always ‘i’.
10 SUIT. Double definition, one a little tricky. ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’, and they also a suit in a pack of cards.
11 READJUSTMENT, READ JUST MEN + T[ime]. I wasted a lot of time trying to shove in ‘rearrangement’, which doesn’t fit.
13 FIANCE, F[r=>I]ANCE, an obvious one that I did get on the first country I tried.
14 CASTLING, CAST LING. I wanted to use two chess pieces and take away a word meaning ‘fish’, only to discover the real answer was a lot simpler.
15 BROILER, B(R)OILER. Again, I was expecting an esoteric breed of chicken, and got the commonplace.
16 VATICAN, VATIC + AN. From the ordinary Latin word for a prophet, vates.
20 ONCE OVER, ON C(E)OVER. Put in from the definition, it took me a long time to figure out how the cryptic works.
22 MAGNET, MA(G)NET.
23 BLITHE SPIRIT, a play by Noel Coward, out of Shelley.
25 Omitted.
26 ANNOUNCE, AN (N) OUNCE. My attempt to use ‘gram’ was not successful.
27 THEOLOGY, THE(O[ld] LOG)Y.
 
Down
2 COURTIER, COUR(T)IER.
3 INTRANSIGENT, IN TRANSI(GEN)T. For a long time, I thought this was going to be an anagram of ‘it’s hard to’ around ‘gen’.
4 LEGALESE, anagram of ALLEGE + S, E. My last in, I didn’t see the anagram until very late.
5 SUBJECT, double definition, should be obvious….unless you put the ‘not’ with the wrong part, like I did.
6 MISSUS, MISS US.
7 Omitted.
8 PENTAGON, double definition that will fool no one.
12 MILKING STOOL, MIL(KINGS TOO)L. The only mildly tricky clue in the puzzle.
15 BROWBEAT, BROW + BE AT. Here you must lift and separate the answer, not the clue.
17 ARMS RACE, ‘ARMS RACE.
18 AVERRING, A VER[y] RING.
19 PROPHET, PROP + anagram of THE. Also a synthesizer in the 70s, watch out for that.
21 VIENNA, anagram of NAIVE + N.
24 IONA, hidden word in MISSIONARY. The crossing letters should make it obvious even if you didn’t know what they did there in the 7th century.

25 comments on “Times 24730 – A snowbound solve”

  1. Got there in 23 min, after a steady stumble. Granted nothing way-out, but I didn’t feel it was exactly easy, in fact felt quite pleased (alright, smug) with my time. So thank you Setter for an excellent start to the week. Last in, MISSUS. COD to THEOLOGY.
  2. Must be something going on here. An almost identical experience and time to Vinyl’s. So right in the middle of the Light-to-Heavy scale I thought. Cheered me up no end after not even finishing the ST at the weekend. (Gloom partially caused by certain events in Melbourne but.) My COD goes to IONA: simple and right on the money.
  3. A speedy (for me) 20 minutes, thanks to some awfully easy clues (pentagon, brie, etc.). But I did like 10ac. And it isn’t just any girl who gets put on a cover; I think perhaps ‘pretty girl’ might have been a better clue.
    The Shelley reference (23ac) is to ‘To a Skylark’, hence ‘for a lark’: ‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit,/ Bird thou never wert yatta yatta’
  4. A leisurely 28 minutes while watching Trott and Prior make hay with the Aussies. The tasks seemed equally undemanding (though I was held up a bit at the end by Suit, and the rationale for Once over is elusive). COD 10.
  5. Somewhat slow to get fully under way (despite some very easy starters) but thereafter steady progress, finishing in under 30 minutes. (I’m surprised at how often this has happened recently: it shows the value of coming to this site!)

    COD (and last in) to SUIT. Glad to see that my rendering of the wordplay coincided with that of vinyl1.

  6. I thought this was properly post Christmas gentle, but with proper, high quality clues and lots of smiles. The top left was my slow section, since I failed to spot aces as heroic airmen in 1ac, so worked clockwise from 9ac for an 18 minute total. Last in SUIT (discarding BUST, which occurred to me but would be hard to explain).
    Two beautifully economical clues captured my respect: MISSUS and IONA, the latter securing also my CoD.
    I would be happy to use this one as an introduction to the genre, as it contains much of what makes the time entertaining, but without obscurities and not demanding too much erudition.
  7. 40 minutes for all but 10ac and 16ac both of which stumped me so I resorted to aids. Rather annoyed that I didn’t persevere as I had considered a diamonds or possible ice reference at 10. The Holy See had also occurred to me at 16 just for a split second but I dismissed it as I could not make sense of the cross-reference to 19 (through pure ignorance on my part).

    Like mctext I also struggled with the ST puzzle yesterday but I managed to polish of the last few clues this morning without use of aids.

  8. A very gentle 20 minute canter with no problems along the way. I can imagine some getting a bit steamed up about “where girl may be shown”, very sexist!

    I remember being in Hartford, Connecticut in a blizzard when the roof of the sports stadium collapsed under the weight of snow so I’m thinking of you Vinyl and wishing you well. We have a slight thaw here.

    1. On the sexist theme, Jimbo, did you see the nice tribute in ystdy’s ST to Barbara Hall, who has just retired at the age of 87 as one of that paper’s cryptic crossword setters? In her time, apparently, she compiled crosswords and puzzles for all manner of publications, including the soft-porn magazine Forum. The clue she was proudest of for that outlet was: “Voluptuous girl: reason enough for the crime?” (6) Answer: “Bigamy”.

      As you say, a not too difficult puzzle, but SUIT and VATICAN eluded me for some time, so about 40 mins in the end.

      Royal Wimbledon GC still closed. Unlikely to open before Wednesday, according to the pro’s shop. I can’t remember a time when weather has caused such a prolonged period of no play.

      1. If this thaw continues I think our courses near the coast (Queens at Bournemouth say) could open tomorrow – inland will be a different story
  9. 36 minutes. Liked the country seat and the hidden IONA. Thought ONCE OVER a fine clue, but took a long time to understand it; kept trying to think of a girl called Eno. Should really have clicked earlier, as one of my favourite songs is Long Ago and Far Away from the 1944 Rita Hayworth film Cover Girl.
  10. A fairly easy Monday offering, taking 25 minutes. Some quite deceptive clues, such as 10 and 13. I took a few minutes considering all the possible fills for _U_T before settling on SUIT with a sudden realization of the sense of ‘become’. I didn’t work out the wordplay to 20 at all, though I didn’t spend much time on it.
  11. I took 22mins which is longer than usual, but that may be due to the effects of last night, not to mention the day before..
    However I thought this crossword had some very fine clues, especially 24dn which is a thing of real beauty. Also 10ac, and 20ac, regarding which a visit to any newsagent will confirm its truth; so any sexism is not in the clue, but in the publishing industry. Or in the readership perhaps?

  12. In the middle of a heat wave here in Perth; after 40 degrees on Christmas Day it was a bit cooler today at 39. I’m busy putting hot air in bottles and mailing it to anyone who wants some. As for the puzzle I finally got around to it after Christmas visitors left and the cricket finished. Rain is the Aussies only hope there. Can Melbourne come up trumps?

    For some reason I thought blithe had a y, so that made IONA tricky for a while. SUIT was good, as was CASTLING and quite a goodly few others, but COD to MILKING STOOL. I’ve a soft spot for MILL, poor misguided fool that he was.

  13. An enjoyable 27 minutes. Nothing too tricky although I didn’t see the connection between “diamonds”, “girls best friend” and “suit” until coming here. Embarrassing – because Anita Loos is one of my favourites and I had immediately thought of Lorelei and the diamonds but missed the pack of cards connection. I loved the definition of MILKING STOOL as “country seat”. My COD
  14. A sociable solve today, with the help of my Dad, who’s visiting over the festive period. Ended with 10 and 16 (as others). CoD to MILKING STOOL. (Dad quite liked CASTLING, as this was one he managed on his own!)
  15. Very enjoyable, and I agree with all the praise for 24D IONA which is my favourite. 14 mins to complete, with LEGALESE last in for no very good reason.

    Tom B.

  16. Snowed in here in the Hudson Valley in NY. No time to post but more toward middling than easy, in my opinion, although I found the surfaces to be extremely good. So, best wishes of the season to the setter, and everyone else. I especially liked the surface for SUBJECT. The B(R)OILER chicken business in 15A brought back unfond memories of my mother’s boiled, pressure cooker chicken, from my early days, which was served at scalding temperature and burned the roof of my mouth and tongue once every week back in the 60’s. (She married young and was not adept in the kitchen.) The snow has stopped here but the wind is still howling off the river, and blowing snow everywhere. Hunkering down for the rest of the day. Regards.
  17. I fell for Lebanese as a “formal language”. Last in, and a straight-out guess!

    Happy Burns day, who will speak to the haggis? Australia Day here, and another one day match with the poms missing a few key bowlers. Good Luck to them.

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