Times 24751 – Remembering The Sex Pistols

Author   yfyapPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I find today’s puzzle mystifying in places and need help from the community to unravel some of the convoluted structure of the wordplay. Extremely challenging for a weekday puzzle. I feel very 5 today.

ACROSS
1 PICKWICK PICK (elect) WICK (Scottish town) In Charles Dicken’s The Pickwick Paper, the main character, Mr Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, is a kind and wealthy old gentleman, and the founder and perpetual president of the Pickwick Club.
5 STUPID Ins of TUP (sheep) in SID Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie (1957–1979) an English musician best known as the bassist of the influential punk rock group Sex Pistols
9 LAP JOINT Cha of LAP (drink) JOINT (smoke as in a reefer)
10 CADGED Thanks to glheard, ins of D (last letter of Madrid) in CAGED (unable to fly out)
12 TELEMARKETING Ins of TIN (metal) in TELEMARK (Region of Norway) & EG (exempli gratia, for example, say) Calls to sell, cute def
15 CUT-IN C (first letter of cause) + *(unit)
16 LIFE STORY Ins of F (fine) in LIES (fiction) TORY (right person)
17 ALLEGORIC Ins of LL (lines) in A (first letter of act) EGO (I) RICH (loaded) minus H
19 BLAIR rha for Eric Blair, an author better known by his pen name George Orwell
20 WELL-APPOINTED Ins of LAPP (Scandinavian) in *(we led into)
22 EXMOOR EX (partner’s who left; nice change from old flame or divorcee) MOOR (rev of ROOM, space)
23 ATLANTIC Ins of LAN (pLANe, wingless aircraft) in ATTIC (space above)
25 TINTIN Tinting (adding a little colour) minus G for that cartoon character; in The Adventures of Tintin (Les Aventures de Tintin) is a series of comic strips created by the Belgian artist Georges Rémi (1907–1983), who wrote under the pen name of Hergé.
26 CHINLESS Without a chin (prominent feature) Chinless wonder is an English man from a high social class, who thinks he is intelligent and important, but who other people think is weak and stupid He’s just another chinless wonder doing a job that his Daddy got for him.

DOWN
1 POLITICIAN PO (Post Office, doing deliveries of mail) LIT (fell upon) + ins of CIA (Central Intelligence Agency, agents) in IN
2 COP C (first letter of call) OP (operation or surgery) Thanks to ulaca, busy is slang for a policeman
3 WOODMAN Ins of OO (rings) DM (rev of MD, Medicinae Doctor) in WAN (sickly)
4 CONTROL FREAK Please see glheard’s excellent parsing below
6 TOADIES *(iodates)
7 PIG-IGNORANT Ins of GIG (concert) NORA (girl) in PINT (beer)
8 DODO  Rev of 2 x OD (overdose) for the extinct bird
11 PERFECT PITCH PERFECT (pristine) P (piano) ITCH (to be dying)
13 LITTLE WOMEN *(time not well)
14 BY-PRODUCTS BY (times as in multiplication, 4 by 4 is 16) PRO (professional or expert) DUC (rev of CUD, something to chew over) T’S (temperature’s)
18 GOLDONI (wordplay – see glheard below) Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni (1707-1793) Italian dramatist who wrote more than 250 plays, including 150 comedies, such as The Mistress of the Inn.
19 BRITAIN Ins of IT (Information Technology, use of computer) in BRAIN (intelligence centre)
21 NEXT Ins of X (vote) in NET (goal)
24 TOE Sounds like TOW (pull)
 
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram

36 comments on “Times 24751 – Remembering The Sex Pistols”

  1. 10 is CADGED – D in CAGED with a kind of a backwards reading wordplay.

    I found this tricky but got an accurate (according to the Crossword Club) solution in 17 minutes 21 seconds which is still good enough for top of the leaderboard, woohoo.

    I think CONTROL FREAK is CONTE – short story about ROLF (German), R(King) A,K(another king)

    GOLDONI from wordplay, PIG IGNORANT without understanding all of the wordplay.

    May be a debut for Sid in the Times

    1. > PIG IGNORANT without understanding all of the wordplay.

      I suppose it’s GIG (concert) NORA (girl) inside PINT (beer). [… was patting myself on the back for getting that one right away.]

    2. Thank you for such an excellent breakdown of the answer! I solved the clue correctly but was only able to understand it after I read your comment.
  2. Oh and 25 is TINTIN – TINTIN(g)

    The wordplay for GOLDONI is rather a treat – GOLD (Au) then N (Naturel initially) in OI! (a cry – think Mark “Jacko” Jackson and those risible energizer battery commercials)

    1. That is REALLY clever. One that I solved through cross-checking letters and an online aid. Thanks for the explanation. The wordplay is indeed a treat!
    1. Like many, I suspect, the answer was easy to come by but not the reason for busy; then I remembered an early series of “Prime Suspect”, set in the N.W. in which the term “busy” was used in that context.
  4. Pleased to finish without errors, albiet in a stately 77 minutes. Excellent puzzle. I thought the GOLDONI clue was a gem, with the counter-intuitive requirement to lift and separate the French phrase. Last in LAP JOINT. Rather embarrassingly, I was on to ‘lap’ quite early (when I was still missing 2dn adn so had only l–), but in the sense of lap dancing. It’s actually a carpentry term.
  5. Very difficult, and I sympathize with Uncle Yap. It took me an hour plus, but correct in the end, last entry GOLDONI, very clever, but very hard. George, your time is astounding for this – well done. A lot of devilish stuff here. COD to the CHINLESS wonder. Regards.
  6. My “D’oh!” moment today was 24d. Got it right but just couldn’t work out why….until I read the explanation. Do other people have those moments when you feel just a little dumb?!
  7. A straightforward solve taking 35 minutes which is not bad for me, however it was a while after completing the grid that I understood how all the clues worked.

    GOLDONI could have gone in a lot sooner than he did as I thought of him immediately with only G?????? in place, but I couldn’t unravel the wordplay at that stage so I left him out until more checkers confirmed the inevitable. He’s the only Italian playwright beginning with G that I could think of and I know him only because I have seen two different productions of his play ‘The Servant of Two Masters’.

  8. Crikey!Can’t give a time for this one, as the Central Line was busy finding new ways to discommode its service users. Solved piecemeal in the 30 or so minutes of on-off travel.
    LAP JOINT last in for me too, but most clues were a decent workout. GOLDONI from the brilliant cluing (how well known is he in Italy?) POLITICIAN took ages to parse, and in the end I was still trying to make fell upon = LIT IN. Almost nothing was as it seemed which makes this the perfect puzzle to show those who think it’s all mystical nonsense just how right they are.
    CoD to CONTROL FREAK over GOLDONI because I’d heard of it and the clue structure was devilish clever.
  9. 38 minutes. Quite a battle of wits, this one; took a while to unpick some of the clues, particularly 4 and 12. CHINLESS made me smile, possibly because “chinless wonder” always reminds me of Monty Python’s Upper Class Twit of the Year.

    I’d always imagined the expression “chinless wonder” to be British military slang dating from the Second World War, but a quick Google search indicates it is much earlier and probably American.

    1. Interesting point about chinless. Re Ardnamurchan from the day before, I can imagine that is what a Celtic supporter, for example, might say, con brio, if his team lost to, say, Thurso in the Scottish Cup. Of course there was that famous newspaper headline seen a few years ago after Celtic lost to Inverness Caledonian Thistle (“Caley”):
      Supercaleygoballisticcelticareatrocious!
  10. Managed to complete in about an hour, with considerable frustration along the way to parse the wordplay. Particularly troubled by 15ac (where I saw ‘cut’ as ‘film editor’s work’ and hence struggled to justify ‘in’; thank you yfyap for explanation). Irritated by 9ac where description of ‘lap joint’ as ‘meeting place’ seemed inappropriate until I read ulaca’s comment (thanks). Thank you, setter: whilst I ‘correctly’ solved the puzzle, the victory honours really belong to you for a stimulating challenge which found me wanting. 7dn?
  11. Unlike yesterday, there’s nothing much to complain of. Medium-Heavy and 52 minutes for me. I suspect there are faster times from those who prefer to write in answers without full understanding — apart from Sid Goldoni (see above, always a good idea before posting!) none of the answers were strange terms*; but some of the cryptics were as fiendish as I’ve seen them for a while in the daily.
    * ‘Busy’ for policeman’s been seen (and considered here) before.
    Only thing I didn’t like much was, as usual, the cryptic def in 26ac. Any other members of ACDC (Anti Cryptic Def Club) agree?
  12. Found this tough. annoyed at not remembering for ages that busy is slang for policeman and hadnt heard of a lap joint. Goldoni gets my COD but the wordplay for politician is cute too!
  13. Very tricky puzzle for a weekday, 22:42 for me, plus another few minutes after finishing to get all the wordplay.
  14. 39 minutes for this, so about the same difficulty as yesterday’s but a much more enjoyable puzzle for me. Lots of great stuff, particularly the origniality packed into three letters for COP and the delightfully devious use of “au naturel” in 18dn. And some lovely surfaces, including COP but also the rather topical Madrid airport delay and the musician’s bequest.
    TELEMARKETING was my last in and I couldn’t see it for ages even with all the checking letters. “Calls to sell” is rather cunning.
    Super puzzle.
  15. One of those puzzles where we had to use our aid several times, but where eventually getting the answer made us smile. Just over the hour. COD to Goldoni, after reading the explanation above.
  16. 47:30 in total, with the last 15 minutes spent on 3 clues (7/10/12). I had to walk away for a few minutes and come back before I got them. I was despairing about 12, not thinking I knew any Norwegian regions, but TELEMARK actually cropped up quite recently in a Jumbo I blogged just before Christmas.

    I really enjoyed this one, more so than any other I remember recently. So I was particularly pleased to finish it unaided, and in a decent time. Lots of excellent wordplay – GOLDONI, CONTROL FREAK (thanks to George for explaining that one), BY-PRODUCTS, PIG-IGNORANT, COP, POLITICIAN, many others. Too many to pick a COD.

    I live in the northwest of England where Scouse people in particular are often heard to refer to the police as ‘Da bizzeez’, so I had no problem with that one.

  17. 44:16 .. my slowest solve in a long time and I thought I would never finish. After half an hour the NW corner was still almost blank.

    Tough challenge with some brilliant wordplay. I suspect more than a few commuters will have arrived at the office with an unfinished puzzle in their briefcase (productivity in the City may have been a little down this morning).

    The intersection of the Sid Vicious and overdose clues is rather dark. As so often, the daily crossword has set me off on a Wiki trip and I’ve just been reading Sid Vicious’ life story. I was slightly too young to have had much interest at the time, but it’s grimly fascinating – his last weeks were like a ‘Law & Order’ plot with a twist of noir.

    Last in: LAP JOINT. COD has to be GOLDONI

    1. > I suspect more than a few commuters will have arrived at the office with an unfinished puzzle in their briefcase (productivity in the City may have been a little down this morning)

      You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.

  18. 23:37 The “Au naturel initially” was a great piece of cluing.I was thinking TONING for 25 for a good while so that didn’t help.Last in LAP JOINT and I innocently thought it must be some kind of seedy ‘gentleman’s establishment’ given my total ignorance of all things DIY.
  19. About an hour again today. I’m on holiday and I think my brain has stayed at home! I got GOLDONI easily enough from the definition but didn’t see the cryptic. A brilliant piece of clueing. Last in LAP JOINT. I’d heard of it but it just didn’t click.
  20. That was SO HARD. I’m glad others found it so – thought I was losing my mind.

    Thanks for the blog, it really helps.

  21. Really enjoyed this puzzle…right up my street, with a good variety of GK, clever wordplay, and easyish-to-get answers from definition/cryptic clues! Didn’t get the parsing for POLITICIAN or TELEMARKETING, but managed to work out most of the others. Thought BLAIR referred to ‘our Tony’ as a ref to his memoirs (but then realised he’s still alive, isn’t he?), and didn’t get GOLDONI – great clue! Busy = COP always takes me back to Brookside Close, compulsive viewing in the 90s!
  22. All was well until the last two, control freak and Ll joint. Thought the latter, when I finally got it, was a lap-dancing club, a la clip joint, and applauded the Times’ broadmindedness, till I saw the carpentry reference above. Time out of mind but probably about an hour with half on those two. Good puzzle. COD to Little Women.
  23. I got Little Women as it was the only anagram I could make. But I presume the definition was “work”? Just seems a little feeble that’s all.
  24. If it’s any consolation, Uncle Yap, I found this decidedly heavy going as well – and so not really all that enjoyable, despite some clever wordplay. I eventually finished in 15:51, which I suppose wasn’t a total disaster, but it was a bit of a struggle. I actually enjoyed the 50-year-old puzzle a lot more, for all its faults.

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