Times 24742 – Something for everyone

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time:40 minutes, but not continuous

Music: None, watching golf on TV

Another puzzle that was so easy it gave me difficulty. Clues like 1 across should go in instantly, but instead it was almost my last in. Of course, I was a bit distracted by the first PGA event of the season, watching a few shots, then writing in a few answers.

Although this was not exactly a brain-basher, there were some fine and witty clues. In a few cases, I didn’t understand the literal, and had to work from the cryptic. I will research these on the internet in order to complete the blog, but I am quite confident that I have the correct solution.

Across
1 TEMPLE, a simple double definition. I was fooled a bit by the ‘in’, taking it as an insertion indicator.
4 STACCATO, CAT’S backwards + CAT + O[ld]. Usually they use two different pets, or two different meanings of pet, in these types of clues.
10 PRICKLE, P(R)ICKLE, one I got from the cryptic. I now see that the literal is ‘the point’, although one might also take ‘where’s the point?’ as an expression of impatience indicating prickliness.
11 COMMENT, CO + MM + E.N.T. The Military Medal makes a rare appearance, which is surprising because ‘mm’ is often very useful. The hospital department is in every other easy puzzle.
12 RUBY, RU + BY. Another one I had to get from the cryptic, because I had no idea that the fortieth wedding anniversary is the ruby.
13 OBLITERATE, anagram of OIL, A BETTER.
15 SHAKE A LEG, S(HAKE)ALE + G[o].
16 SEPIA, sounds like SEEPIER, or maybe not, as the question mark indicates.
18 LEECH, C in HEEL backwards.
19 Omitted.
21 SECURITIES, anagram of SERIES I CUT, easy because the letters are transposed in bunches.
23 LAIC, LA + I[n] C[harge].
26 UKRAINE, UK + RAINE, sounds like REIGN. I nearly put in Bahrain, but fortunately had a crossing letter in place.
27 OVERDUE, OVER + DUE, in the sense of ‘due north’.
28 YOUNGEST, Y + anagram of TONGUES.
29 GAZEBO, GAZE + B[uilding] + O. Should have been obvious, but wasn’t, I wanted to put the ‘B’ at the beginning.
 
Down
1 TAPER, double definition, a taper being a sort of candle.
2 MAINBRACE, MAIN + B[oat] + RACE. I never heard of this, but the cryptic hands it to you.
3 LIKE, double definition.
5 TACKING, TA(C)KING. The literal may be unfamiliar to some, but I vaguely remembered it.
6 COMPENSATE, CO + M(PENS)ATE. Here ‘pounds’ is neither the money nor the weight, but rather the places where dogs or sheep are impounded.
7 Omitted.
8 ON THE MAKE, anagram of METHANE, OK? It’s OK with me!.
9 GERBIL, hidden word in [big]GER BIL[let]. These critters were kept as pets by kids in the US forty years ago – my brother’s gerbil made a clean escape from its cage and was never seen again.
14 RED HERRING, RED + H + ERRING. Easy to get from the literal.
15 SALISBURY, SAL+ IS + BURY – a town in Lancashire. Lord Salisbury was the last prime minister of Great Britain to run the government from the House of Lords.
17 PANHANDLE, double definition, and a witty one. The most famous panhandle is in Texas.
19 ACTRESS, A(C)TRESS. I was surprisingly dull on this one.
20 LIE LOW, double definition referring to a line of inflatable mattresses sold in the UK as ‘Li-Los’. I had to look that up for the blog, I just put it in from ‘hide’.
22 CORFU, C(ORF)U, where ORF is FRO backwards.
24 CREDO, C(RED)O. I believe a commie has infiltrated a business.
25 BETA, double definition. I’m surprised they never use the capital asset pricing model for this one, it would have made a nice cross-reference to 21.

53 comments on “Times 24742 – Something for everyone”

  1. 40 minutes for this, also finishing with 1ac. COD to the elegant RUBY. SHAKE A LEG for ‘hurry’ was unfamiliar. Splice the mainbrace, technically the order to issue a crew with a drink, is the sort of thing you might expect in a tired pirate-based comedy sketch, along with “Ooh ah me hearties” and “Them that dies will be the lucky ones”.

    Am I the only Brit who can’t read Corfu without giving it an internal pronunciation as if it were being said by an Essex chav?! (Fondue has the same effect.)

  2. Incidentally, the active ‘taking’ was also unfamiliar to me (cf. ‘taken’), ‘though quite gettable by analogy with ‘fetching’ (which conversely has no passive form).
  3. Just when we thought the ellipsis problem had gone away, it bounces back again – in the online version at least. I don’t like ’em anyway…would anyone like to start a Ban the Ellipsis campaign?

    Finished in 30.35, although I had a question mark against taking/TACKING and it took me a while to figure out the fro part of CORFU. TEMPLE was my last in too.

    As a pedantic editor, I was happy to see LIE LOW making an appearance rather than its ugly cousin, LAY LOW.

    1. I don’t know what the “ellipsis problem” you refer to is (a discussion that predates my discovery of this blog perhaps) but I can say that they usually baffle me, today’s included. What on earth are they for?
      1. Sorry for being obscure. There’s been a long-standing problem with ellipses not displaying properly in the online version. Looked as though it had been sorted out a couple of weeks ago – but obviously not.
        1. Ah, I see. Firmly grasping the wrong end of the stick as usual. Mind you I can’t see that not having them there would make much difference.
          1. Not at all, I’m with you on this. Quite apart from the technical issue, I don’t think they add anything to the puzzle.
  5. Fast, by my standards, at 19m. Some of the double definitions (in particular) seemed too obvious to risk on the first pass and didn’t go in as fast as they should have done.

    I remember Li-lo from my childhood. As with Hoover and the rest, it eventually became the generic name for its product type, but I doubt it would be familiar to anyone under 40 – except as tabloid shorthand for Lindsay Lohan.

    1. LiLo
      If you just invented that, bravo! I come here for a laugh as well as enlightenment.
      Bottom-up theory came good today with NW corner only real hold up, but PANHANDLE last in however. Nearly invented a dark fluid called SAPIA (sounds like sappier, but corrected at last moment).
      1. Barry: after about three weeks in Australia, I was threatened with being sent back with nought but a passport and a Li-lo if I didn’t stop whingeing! Have learned better since.
        1. I can’t claim to have invented it. Naming a young lady of impeccable morals after an old type of inflatable mattress seems like a short-cut to an expensive day in the High Court.
  6. 25 minutes, the last 7 or so of which were spent dithering about ‘ruby’ and ‘lie low’. I’ve never heard of the mattress,and wasted ages wondering if ‘say’=eg. RUBY came quite late, too, because I had always thought ‘mainbrace’ was two words. And once again I was too hasty, not noticing that there’s no M in ‘on the take’.
  7. Pleasant canter in 16 minutes with a few rationales not seen on the way. COD sepia for the nerve of the comparative.
  8. Yes, I had all sorts of strange trouble in the top left and couldn’t see TEMPLE, LIKE, PRICKLE and TAPER. Took me 43 minutes in all.My very personal COD goes to 15dn for its shades of “She’s Leaving Home” and (just possibly) “Wednesday Morning, 3AM”.
  9. At 20 minutes I had four in the NW and four in the SE missing and needed another 15 to sort these out,PANHANDLE, GAZEBO and BETA being the last three in. I spent a while after completing the grid working out the wordplay, COMPENSATE putting up most resistance here.

    An excellent puzzle with some quite easy stuff but plenty of food for thought elsewhere.

  11. 14 minutes.
    However I’ve learned today that I’ve been mispronouncing the word “sepia” my entire life. I considered it but as “seppier” isn’t a word I plumped for the unknown SUPIA. Unknown because non-existent, as it turns out.
    Otherwise a nice gentle start to the week, but a fine puzzle nonetheless.
  12. Nothing too taxing here, no unfamiliar vocab, and I managed the whole lot correctly in under an hour (maybe even my own PB?!), but without full understanding of all the clues: hadn’t heard of Lord Salisbury, didn’t get the ref to north at 27ac, nor that PENS = POUNDS at 6dn. Finished, as others, with RUBY (my COD) and TEMPLE.
  13. No time today – distracted by odd events on the Central Line and forgot to check the finish – but it felt quick. Having got the 1’s quickly, the whole thing (except 14d) resolved in an anticlockwise fashion. 14d went in after I guessed at RED HERRING as the only thing that would fit, having not checked that it was (3,7) on the way through. Then, of course, couldn’t understand why I had spotted neither the literal nor the wordplay.
    Cod to SALISBURY.
  14. Found this very easy, no doubt as a reaction to the 1961 puzzle which was not easy at all! Still four clues left in that, though no doubt it will sort itself out later
  15. Almost identical time and identical difficulties as vinyl1 (but I knew ‘lilo’). Would have been under 30 minutes if I had not stuck too long with my conviction that 29ac must begin with a ‘b’. A pleasant combination of easier and more challenging clues.
  16. 13:05. My best time in a long time. Due, I’m pretty sure, to doing the puzzle more frequently.
  17. A nice gentle start to the week. I guess it would be uncharitable to ask the pedants if “female” in 23 should be “feminine”?
  18. I managed to avoid most pitfalls and finished in 20 minutes, having obviously donned my wriggle and shaken both legs. If it was my turn to blog, I’m sure I could have doubled that time. COD to GAZEBO over PRICKLE.

    On the subject of inflatable mattresses, lilo is also a verb, meaning to plunge into rapidly flowing water sitting on same and seeing how far downstream you can go. Some Ipswich youths tried it recently and got arrested! They were charged with “overly worrying adults”, I think.

  19. The last 5 took about 15 minutes on and off. Looking back I would agree with the ‘so easy it gave me difficulty’ even though a friend had commented that it was easy-peasy. COD to the wonderful word that is PANHANDLE.
  20. 26 minutes. Carelessly wrote in NEED instead of LIKE, so that messed up the corner for a while. Always enjoy concise clues, so COD must be BETA … or possibly PANHANDLE … or maybe RUBY. Whichever; a most enjoyable start to the week.
  21. 34:48 with one wrong. I’d put TICKING rather than TACKING.
    Raced through the left hand side, then the NE corner was a little slower, then crawled through the SW corner.
  22. Around 40mins,interrupted by taking our old labrador to the vet. Pleased we had come across the Texas panhandle – has anyone heard of any others of note? Our grandchildren still enjoy using the lilo in the swimming pool.
  23. Having looked at the blog and seen that temple was the answer to 1a it seems so obvious. I was just clueless (well answerless actually) in that corner and had put segregate as 2 down. Not totally explained but to part is to segregate and “regat” is the beginning of regatta, which is a boating contest! What further evidence does ones need!?!?
    Louise
  24. There was a lot for me to enjoy about this puzzle. No unfamiliar vocabulary and some good surfaces. TEMPLE was my last in but, in retrospect, I can’t see why I didn’t see it straight away. I ended up solving this from the bottom up because the NW corner was proving resistant. RUBY is my COD. Time: 27 minutes. I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the femme fatale from the TV series “Bread” whose derogatory nickname was “Lilo Lil”.
  25. Dead on par at 40 minutes. A very pleasant start to the week. Having got all the crossers for 8dn, I just managed to avoid putting in “ON THE GAME” without seeing the anagram.
    1. Thanks both for identifying two panhandles previously unknown to us. I remember ‘Bronco Lane’ well, but my wife says she is too young!
  27. Amiable 20 minute stroll in the park after first normal round of golf in quite some time. No real talking points (though I love the comment above about LA=feminine rather than female)
  28. 11:35 .. some neat, witty definitions like those for GERBIL and YOUNGEST. Otherwise, easier than .. than .. something that’s really easy (still on the morning coffee here).

    I certainly remember gerbils (and li-los, for that matter) from the 1970s. My mother vetoed my attempts to acquire one on the grounds of the smell (I told her the gerbil would soon get used to it, but she wouldn’t budge). In the event, I’m grateful, as the experiences of much-envied, gerbil-owning friends suggested that a gerbil was a short and brutal lesson in the impermanence of life.

  29. 11:53 here, but it felt quicker. No hold-ups at all, and it felt more like 8 minutes. A very gentle Monday-morning workout.
  30. Having been born and raised in San Francisco, for me the Panhandle was the eastern, much narrower, end of Golden Gate Park.
    1. My online dictionary mentions these panhandles in the US: Alaska, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia.
  32. As usual I came to a full stop after perhaps an hour and ten minutes with just two answers left to go, and they seemed impossible. But after a break, no real problem: the last in were RUBY (stage one of solving it was seeing that BY means Times) and TAPER, for which I originally had the idea that “this light” must mean ID (or “1 down”) and looking for a word like TEPID or TIPID or whatever. RUBY gave me the R and scotched the line I had been following, and it really has a very neat clue.

    By the way, vinyl1, the wordplay for 13ac is OK, but the word is OBLITERATE, not OBLITERATING.

  33. A rare unaided finish for me, so it must be easy. Last in was ‘PANHANDLE’. Doing the barred puzzles on Sundays has helped. I put in LAIC from the wordplay. New word for me.
    Regards
    Andrew Kitching
  34. Same story as most others, taking too long over things that seem simple in retrospect. About 25 minutes, ending with RUBY, RED HERRING and finally LIE LOW. I didn’t know the mattress or the 40th connection with RUBY. The lateness of RED HERRING was merely a brain cramp. I think all the panhandles should be recognized, so please note that in addition to those already mentioned, Idaho, Nebraska, Maryland, Louisiana and even Connecticut have areas commonly referred to as panhandles; the lattermost’s is the tiny extension of CT toward New York City. And — West Virginia takes the cake; it has 2 panhandles.
    1. Texas too. A fun puzzle worth the time spent. About the same time as vinyl1
      (40 minutes) and as he says, something for everyone.
  35. 5:39 for me – I’m pleased to break 6 minutes after coming close a couple of times last week. I’d have been faster if I hadn’t dithered over BETA, but I was worried that there might be a catch.
  36. Thought Gazebo and Panhamdle were the hardest. also took a while to see Temple although not sure why!

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