Times 24,773 – more tea, vicar?

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
14:05 on the Club timer. An enjoyable puzzle which had the more relaxed feel of, say, the Guardian – no flouting of Ximenean rules, of course, or use of living people in solutions, but the Times doesn’t often go in for the more playful sort of device we have today in the multiple use of Earl Grey* in the clues, so it made a nice change.

One word which I may or may not have already known (it rang faint bells), but which I deduced from wordplay with reasonable confidence; knowledge of US state capitals was also required.

*If there is a special reason for his appearance today, I can’t see it from a cursory Google. His son William George was born on this day in 1819, but as W.G. was his 16th child, I can’t imagine the day ranked as unusually significant in his life. For one thing, he’d already named two of his previous sons William, so he was either deeply attached to the name out of deference to his father-in-law, or he lacked imagination when it came to christening yet another child. If anyone is a historian with deep knowledge of the Reform Act and its architects, please enlighten me.

Across
1 HARD COPY – COP in HARDY; ‘cop’ as in “you’re going to cop it”.
5 STODGE – (DO)rev. in STaGE; DO as in “how are you doing?”. Though things have moved on for the better in recent years, “heavy fare” is a reasonable description of a lot of English cooking of the past, especially what I remember from school…
10 LYDIA – (IDYLl)rev. + A. Lydia was a kingdom in its own right before the Romans arrived, the most famous king of this prosperous area being Croesus.
11 TEA FOR TWO – Two’s company, of course: first appearance of the 2nd Earl Grey.
12 STEEL WOOL – (LOSETOWEL)*.
13 ARRAY – even letters in pAdRe ReAdY.
14 AMNESTY – NEST in AMY (from Little Women). It appears the ‘International’ in the name of the group is optional.
16 CADDIE =”CADDY”, there being a small but significant difference in the spelling of the container for tea and the golfing advisor.
18 SWEATS – double def.; I think the American usage of sweats(-shirts, -pants) has spread far enough for this expression to be understood, if not actually used, by most UK solvers.
20 REQUEST – QUE (French for “what”) in REST.
22 deliberately omitted
23 PUFFING UP – PUFFIN + (PUG)rev.
25 EXISTENCE – [IS TENCh] in EXE.
26 CHELA – East bengaL in CHA; this was the one which was only vaguely familiar, though it’s entirely possible I was thinking of the tennis player, of course.
27 OWNING – double def.
28 CHEYENNE =”SHY ANNE”. Capital of Wyoming; the homonym seems perfect if one accepts the pronunciation guide on wikipedia – any USian solvers want to claim different?
 
Down
1 HOLD SWAY – (LADYSWHO)*.
2 RIDGE – fRIDGE.
3 CHARLES LAUGHTON – LAUGH in CHARLESTON. To West Virginia for the state capital this time, and to the Best Actor Oscar winner of 1932 for the solution.
4 PIT PONY – PIT(=fruit stone) + ePONYm.
6 THOMAS DE QUINCEY – (ONCEHADMYSTIQUE)* unravels to give the author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.
7 DETERMINE – (TED)rev. + ERMINE.
8 EPONYM – (MY NOPE)rev.
9 deliberately omitted
15 NEWTONIAN – Name + [Watt in ETONIAN].
17 STOPPAGE – double def.
19 SUPINE – UP in SINE (as in sine die).
20 REFRESH – RudE + FRESH.
21 GAZEBO – GAZE + BOwler.
24 GLEAN – Good + LEAN; for those in parts of the world where the rhyme is unknown, Jack Sprat would eat no fat…

39 comments on “Times 24,773 – more tea, vicar?”

  1. 17 minutes.
    A reasonably gentle stroll but with a few unknowns (LYDIA, CHELA, and STOPPAGE in the payment sense), one less than familiar term I’m sure I’ve come across before in the Times (SWEATS) and a homophone I couldn’t quite believe (CHEYENNE). The thing that slowed me down most though was CHARLES LAUGHTON, who had to be constructed from wordplay. I’m sure I must have come across him at some point but the name certainly didn’t spring to mind.
    Otherwise I thought for a while I must have the wrong newspaper what with all those Earls Grey and state capitals.
  2. Liked this one a lot, enjoyed all the tea refs. Took me an eternity to unravel STEEL WOOL, having spotted the anagram early on. Hadn’t come across SWEATS = old soldiers, but knew of the trackie bottoms. Lots of good clues, 1 spelling mistake (CHEYANNE – couldn’t believe the correct spelling would sound right!).

    I got SUPINE from UP in SINE.

    1. Quite right, I have amended, thank you. One of those rather anodyne clues that went straight in without me really thinking it through, I’m afraid.
  3. 27 minutes. Thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle; reminded me of ones that Araucaria used to set in The Guardian years ago. Solved with the aid of a mug of Twining’s Breakfast Tea, Earl Grey being more suitable for summer afternoons.
  4. 40 minutes without aids for the second day this week. CHELA was a guess from the wordplay though I think I have met it before. LYDIA and SWEATS similaly. I didn’t know the author but having spotted the anagrist and THOMAS as his first name there was nothing else it could be.

    Nice to have a direct reference to an old song. This one is from the 1920’s show ‘No, No, Nanette’ by Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar.

  5. 28 minutes.
    And, yeh, a bit more fun than usual. Also couldn’t see the LAUGH in 3dn for ages, even though I knew Laughton. Just wouldn’t come back to me. Never heard of CHELA either: it’s also apparently a crab’s claw.
    Notes:
    1. “stops” in 1ac to mean “is included in”. We’ve had this debate before; but I can’t stop (!) thinking about it as “includes”.
    2. “Fare” = DO in 5ac seemed a bit loose. Tim’s explanation accepted. OE: faran, to travel. Makes the more local “How’re ya goin'” closer to the original. So, could we ever have “fare” = GO?? Fair go!

    Edited at 2011-02-15 10:45 am (UTC)

  6. A fairly quick solve, slowed down in the south west. Originally decided 18 across was muftys or muftis. Also took me ages to get 3 down even though the Charleston bit was obvious.
    Louise
  7. The Earl Grey blend is an aberration in the world of fine English teas. I was served it for several years at a friend’s house and was always convinced there was washing up liquid left in the cups which gave it its truely awful flavour. Even having it in my crossword left a foul taste in my mouth. A cup of supermarket’s own is better in every respect. Fooey! Ten minutes and a handful of secs.
  8. Another very easy 15 minute puzzle sponsored by the Tea Drinkers Federation. Unusually I solved this anticlockwise starting with 1A and finishing with 5A (memories of spotted dick and custard). A real 1930’s feel to parts of this with afternoon tea in the gazebo, Tea for Two on the gramaphone, and Charles Laughton hovering. Next week the Whisky Makers Guild?
  9. A surpising 20 minutes here with LYDIA thrown in last with crossed fingers. COD to HOLD SWAY – very natural surface reading although I also liked the EPONYM/PIT PONY cross reference. The particularly unfamiliar words (e.g. CHELA) were clued well enough to put in and then confirm the def.
  10. Charles Laughton is usually remembered for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Mutiny on the Bounty, but I always think of him as the humble clerk Phineas V. Lambert in If I Had a Million. A dying millionaire has bequeathed $1 million to each of eight characters, selected at random from the city telephone directory; Laughton’s reaction on receiving his legacy is priceless.
  11. There have been a few themed puzzles, but I don’t remember a puzzle in his style before. I thought it was original and amusing. Anyone unfamiliar with CHELA obviously hasn’t read “Kim” in which it appears with almost boring regularity.
  12. Rather slow, 50 minutes, but very enjoyable. I have a weakness for Earl Grey tea, but much prefer the Aldi brand to Twinings.

    De Quincey was once the editor of the Westmorland Gazette, the famous old Lake District paper. He secured the position through his connection to Wordsworth, but didn’t make a success of it – too much time on the opium and not enough in the editor’s office, I think.

  13. Enjoyable sub 30 minute solve (needed to confirm CHELA). But I did need to check that I had downloaded the Times, rather than the Guardian, crossword! My aversion to tea was no problem: jimbo’s speculation about next week’s sponsorship would probably be another matter …
  14. Solved in two stages, with an interruption by the day job, but a total of about 18 mins to solve. I don’t like the tea but I did enjoy the theme!
  15. 13:50 .. the tea thing made a nice change. But now I’m going to have ‘Tea For Two’ bouncing round my head all day.

    I agree with anon re Earl Grey – it tastes like soap.

    Last in: HOLD SWAY

  16. I loved this, having a penchant for the themed stuff(if not EG, I’m with the washing-up liquid crowd).

    A sign of a good puzzle is when you can laugh(ton) at mistakes made en route – I somehow contrived to initially mangle the twin columns, blithely submitting Charlie Chaplain and Daphne Du Maurier. What a John Thomas.

  17. People often used the same first name for their children in days when they weren’t necessarily expected to survive infancy or childhood – particularly names with a family significance. The tomb of William and Anne Clopton in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, shows two sons named William, the first of whom died in infancy and is therefore shown in swaddling clothes. And the wonderful tomb in the church in Cobham, Kent, shows several adult sons with the same name kneeling around their parents’ effigy. One wonders how they coped when against-the-odds survival meant several children with the same name.
    1. The boxer George Foreman had five sons, all named George. When asked why, he is reported to have said, “You try getting hit on the head by Muhammad Ali, and see how many names you can remember”.
      1. I was once in the Post Office behind a lady collecting a huge wad of cash. When I asked what it was she replied, “It’s my child support money”. I said, “That’s a lot of money for child support. How many children do you have?”. “12 sons”, she said, “all called Jason”. “How do you let them know which one you’re talking to when you want to address a particular one?”, I asked. “That’s easy”, she replied, “I just use his last name”. Thank you and good night.
  18. Thirty minutes today for this interesting puzzle – I liked the multiple EGs.

    Put in CHEYENNE assuming a link to Native Americans. Amazed it’s pronounced “shy anne.” Last three in were CHARLES LAUGHTON, SWEATS and SUPINE. Almost plundered and spelled NEWTONIAN as -ION. Hadn’t heard of TdQ but figured him out once QUINCEY popped into my mind.

    Yorkshire Tea for me any day of the month! Funny how GAELIC appeared in a clue on Sunday.

    1. Its pronunciation was a lesson learned early in life for me as there was a TV series of this name back in my childhood. Also a later feature film called ‘Cheyenne Autumn’. All those hours wasted watching rubbish (according to my father) on TV have been coming in quite handy here recently.
      1. I didn’t remember the tv programme although my father was addicted to Westerns. Cheyenne is however the capital of my late father-in-law’s home state and I’m impressed that the setter got the pronunciation spot-on.
        1. Re: CHEYENNE
          Frankly I’m puzzled by all the discussion about this pronunciation. How else would one say it? It’s not an obscure word. It’s the name of a native American tribe that’s been referred to and or featured in countless TV Westerns and films for the past 50 years at least so it’s not a term exclusively known by those who live in America, and it’s a US state capital.
  19. For an awful moment there I thought you were going to say that his (Charles’) face didn’t ring any bells, but I’m glad you didn’t.
  20. Just what I needed after a long day at the office; well, any day at an office is long for me.
  22. 23 minutes. Pleasant enough, and I liked the Earl Greys, but I noticed that no one had any CODs, which is how I felt about the puzzle. Never heard of CHELA (in this sense) or STODGE (filboid studge, yes), but they weren’t problematic given the checking letters. Having got the Q and the enumeration, I should have got de Quincey a lot faster than I did. I was surprised that Cheyenne showed up, given its odd pronunciation. (I’m reminded of Mark Twain in Italy: ‘They spell it da Vinci and pronounce it da veenchee; foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.’) Verb. sap.: Pierre, South Dakota, is pronounced ‘PEE-er’.
    2. In similar vein “Shy Anne from Cheyenne” (cited by Anon below) sounds as if it might have been written by Septimus Brope.
  24. ‘Cheyenne’ is ‘shy anne’ in ‘American’. ‘Cheyenne Autumn’ was the last film directed by John Ford, and I bet this is the reference in the setter’s ear; for the folk set, it is referenced in Judy Collin’s song “My Father”:

    All my sisters soon were gone
    To Denver and Cheyenne
    Marrying their grownup dreams
    The lilacs and the man

    1. I wonder if I am alone in getting more pleasure from that than from a recently featured poem by Thomas Hood…?
  25. Loved this puzzle. just my cup of tea
    finished in 30 minutes so relatively easy for me!
    lovely blog today
    well done everyone
    COD Cheyenne
    reminded me of many western films!
  26. Did this during breaks in pub trivia last night (coming last), so no time, but STODGE was a complete guess, and CHELA went in from the wordplay.
  28. There was actually a song, “Shy Anne from Cheyenne”, but not a great success;I doubt whether anyone but me and its author remembers it. John
  29. A sluggish 10:01 for me. I hadn’t come across the “casual dress” meaning of SWEATS before (and so had to spend time checking that there weren’t other possibilities). And I’m not terribly keen on this sort of themed puzzle – a bit too Guardianish for my taste.

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