Times 24820 – A fine mess

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: DNF

Began with 5d, in Procrustean stride, then got the wind up. Slowed to a brisk plod and finally reached Morocco. Gave up in sight of the pole. I had come far enough. If only there’d been a tree to shade under or a quicker route. A few less crêpes and Dampfbuchteln, perhaps. The rest is turbulent history and the teeniest bit of Big Science. Strike up the band!

Across
1 PROM + PianisT = PROMPT. There’s a world of difference between the first and last pianist and pianist first and last, or firstly and lastly.
5 Second + IDES + HOW for “the way that” = SIDESHOW
9 PAN and DRUM for “two kitchen items” around JANuary = PANJANDRUM. The second “kitchen” item would be found in the percussion section of the orchestra.
10 INDY = wINDY
11 CHURN OUT, double definition, the second as in “I’ll just put the churn out”
12 LEPTON sounds like “lept on”. I’ll let Wiki explain, but apparently the world’s supercolliders are full of them. I stopped reading at “the best known of all leptons is…”. That would be a curious usage of “best” and “known” in the close conjunction..
13 Deliberately omitted, but I couldn’t let it pass without a musical allusion.
15 HANDSOME = HOME with AND S for “with son” inserted. Not to be confused with “residence with imposing son in it”. I’m sure we’ve all been there.
18 MAROCAIN = MAR for “ruin” fronting up O for old + CAIN for “man in the Old Testament”. OK, so I “resorted to aids” on this one. When I saw it had to be either a material or an Old Testament character, I lost the will to live, as they say. I was half there with MAROHAON, but I couldn’t see how to turn Noah around, him being so headstrong and all. Surprised I got so close. Its some kind of ribbed crepe from Morocco. I can give you the link to the picture of it which tried to attack my computer if you like, but this one is seems harmless enough
19 NANA, double definition, the first from the phrase “go teach your grammar to suck eggs”, said to someone trying to explain something really simple to others who he should know have already understood and could have explained it to him with a good deal more facility. A nana, perhaps short for “banana”, is a word used chiefly in the UK, or Britain excluding those territories…
21 LEVI for “priest” + WaS, all reversed = SWIVEL
23 SHORT CUT would be CUt, standing for copper.
25 STAN = STANdard. That would be Stan Laurel.
26 (HAD TENANTS)* = THE DANSANT, very popular in Paris at the end of the Edwardian era. Well, we’ve all been there, too.
27 TREELESS = EEL in TRESS. My favourite today, I think, from the absurdist school.
28 EDDIES = ED DIES. That would be “Edwards four, five, Dick the bad, Harrys twain, Ned six, the lad” and “Edward the Seventh came next and then came George the Fifth in 1910″, and

Down
2 I’m leaving this one out. You now where to reach me.
3 MAJOR DOMO = JAM for “crowd”, reversed + OR for “men” + DO for “make” + MOan
4 TEND for “nurse” + ON for “leg” (as in cricket) = TENDON
5 (RESTLESS THEN GO)* encircling C for “about” = STRETCH ONES LEGS
6 DUMP for “get rid of” + LING for “heather” = DUMPLING. Haven’t seen that ling for ages.
7 SKIMP = SKIM for “cream” + Porridge
8 ODD-JOB MAN = (Judge BAND MOOD)*. I’m sure someone can explain the “to”.
14 AD for “notice” + W for “wife” inside HEATER = HEADWATER
16 TIDINESS* enclosing A for “area” = SANITISED
17 PAULETTE = U for “of the upper classes” in PALETTE, another nice clue.
20 DOT for “mark” + AGE = DOTAGE
22 aVENUE. Why did I not see this as soon as I had the V?
24 ULNAE = (UNGULATE – GU -T)*. A subtractive anagram where the removed letters are not adjacent! And in The Times! There’ll be riots in the streets of Haringey tonight, if indeed there are any streets in Haringey.

64 comments on “Times 24820 – A fine mess”

  1. Top marks for knowing your dates and your kings! MAROCAIN from the wordplay (mais bien sur) and THE DANSANT either a guess or something that stuck from a novel. 62 minutes, but might have broken the hour if I’d managed to think of the third member of the ‘sparing’ triumvirate. As it was, I was stuck with ‘scrimp’ and ‘stint’ until LEPTON and DUMPLING fell, leaving little INDY last to go in.
  2. What happened to “Easy Monday”? The stars weren’t aligned today. Took me well over 2 hours, and with aids on such as 3d and 12ac. “D’oh” moments with 17d, 20d, 21ac. Never heard of MAROCAIN and, like kororareka, I tried to fit Noah in, and Moses! Never heard of LEPTON or of LING (6d). Sorry to be a pain, kororareka, but I’m afraid I don’t see how 2d was arrived at!
    Last one In and therefore my Clue of the Day was/is 28ac, EDDIES.
    2. Thanks for filling in one that one, Jack. “A head” for each can be tricky when encountered after an absence of some months, as can “a” for per.
  3. Yes, agreed, quite hard. 58 minutes: so just got to the 8:00 news with my pants still on. And yet … I just wanted to know what some of the answers were, esp. in the SW where lurked the seemingly-hard-to-get PAULETTE who turned out to be quite easy in the end. That happens. Persistence pays dividends.

    While I liked the Dead Teds (OK, after looking up the dates — the Wik has a separate page for every known year); my COD goes to the frozen fish, 27ac, for the Dada image.

      1. You mean, like Twanings? Wouldn’t that be how Upper Class Paulette would say it?
        1. Maybe the answer is (also) a fixer of a sort that is taken to ‘judge band mood’ when volatile.
  4. I should know better by now than to put the puzzle down for dinner and pick up after; at least when I’m not on the wagon. 23′ before, 29 after, and one typo. I hadn’t a clue as to why INDY–ta, Koro–and I toyed with Noah for awhile, too; MAROCAIN finally came to mind, I have no idea why. We’ve had PANJANDRUM recently, as well as ‘drum’=percussion, and I’m pretty sure LEPTON as well; I can’t imagine how I’d know the last two if not for these puzzles. I can’t think of any reason for ‘to’ in 8d other than to make the clue grammatical.
    1. I’ve put a comment under yours,Kevin, in The Times’ forum regarding red-tops (#24819)
    2. Yes, but it’s the preceeding “to” which is troubling me. Unless you’re suggesting it’s “(Next) to J (put) BAND MOOD and then shuffle”, which was all I could think of too.
  5. Finished after a fashion in 59 minutes having used a dictionary to look up words beginning with MARO.

    I also had INDY wrong as I thought the event was INDI and I didn’t spot the wordplay that would have corrected me.

    I never stood a chance with LEPTON where I bunged in LAPDOG just to complete the grid. If there had been a hint in the clue that it was a science question I might have dredged it up from somewhere at the back of my mind. I now find it is also a Greek coin of very little value and that may well be the reference the setter had in mind.

    Wasted ages trying to justify PAULETTE having written in the correct answer quite early on. I misread the clue I thought I was looking for a definition less straightforward than simply a female name.

    1. Surely not a Greek coin to add to the material and the Old Testament character?
  6. Mildly relieved to get there in 40 minutes on a wing and a prayer. Almost convinced myself ‘stint’ was a Scots term for cream on porridge. But the tribe’s too hardy for that. Had to guess marocain, shrug about eddies, gurn at major-domo … a wild and woolly ride but all right in the end. Liked the way into lepton, once I saw it.
  7. 27 minutes today, with the sort of hold-ups which make you wonder if you’ll ever crack it at DOTAGE/EDDIES, MAROCAIN/HEADWATER, SKIMP/INDY. Even those of us with a smattering of OT knowledge can despair when an otherwise undefined character is a critical part of the clue, especially when the definition appears to be yet another obscure fabric-ation. And isn’t “ruin” just a bit strong for MAR?

    I’m prepared to acknowledge that my vocabulary for sparing synonyms went AWOL with SKIMP, and was put off because, in my world, any milk with “skim” in the title specifically doesn’t have cream in it, (and doesn’t remotely resemble milk).

    Slightly annoyed that it was either THE DANSANT or LÉGS. There has to be a Listener out there which depends on accents being correctly entered.

    I’m impressed by anyone whose memory of “Willy, Willy, Harry Stee” includes where they fit on a calendar, so a big up to koro. I put EDDIES in once I got the E from DOTAGE, and assumed.

    Cod to SHORT CUT, though nana made me smile with the recollection of Lonnie Donnegan’s dustman dad here.

    1. I prefer the Bee Gee’s version. As for dates, you only have to know 1066, Magna Carta 1215, Agincourt 1415, Great Fire of London 1666 and the 1812 Overture and then interpolate.
        1. They were Australia’s best kept to ourselves secret. If only they’d kept to their roots, they could have become the Billy Braggs of Beverly Hills.
          1. Ye Gods! This clip has cast a pall of naffness over my morning. But they always sounded better than they looked..
  8. I put laptop which i prefer…although i can see that it should probably be lepton!
    1. Brilliant – many’s the time I wanted to jump up and down on recalcitrant laptops. Fine answer, and better than LEPTON.
  9. 13 minutes: I must have been on the setter’s wavelength today. NANA, SHORT CUT and EDDIES went in without full understanding but LEPTON and MAROCAIN were the only actual unknowns. Fortunately when MAJOR DOMO went in I twigged that the biblical man I was looking for wasn’t necessarily old.
  10. Got there in the end (over an hour in bits and pieces) but needed to check MAROCAIN and LEPTON before coming here. I thought I was being particularly obtuse so reassured by others’ times: I still don’t fully understand the wordplay for SHORT CUT: I got the CU part of it but where does the rest come from?

    COD to PROMPT: not because it’s an exceptionally good clue but because of my ‘doh’ moment when I finally realised how it worked: I was fixated on ROMP in PT – don’t ask me where ROMP came from!

    Overall a good challenge and an excellent, entertaining blog: thank you, kororareka.

    1. “Short” in clues is often an instruction to cut the last letter off a wordplay element, so short cut would be enough to get you Cu or copper. It’s one of those do what the answer says to get the clue type of thing, like “Book this to make you go via Hejaz on vacation (6,7)”.
      1. Thanks again. A devilishly clever little device. Another ‘doh’ moment for me: so this ought, perhaps, to be my DOD.
  11. I agree with Mmagus and Kevin. It’s what I’ve previously called a surf-actant.

    Edited at 2011-04-11 10:28 am (UTC)

  12. 9m 45sec on this, an enjoyable start to the week. Took too long to see 20dn, though, which was last in and coincidentally my COD. Thanks for a splendid blog, as ever.
  13. 22m 4sec for this one, making it one of my slower submissions. A very enjoyable puzzle and worth the brainwork. I too was fixated on ROMP in PT, and only fully sussed 28ac (my COD) after submitting.
  14. You’d have to be a NONG not to get NANA with the checkers in place, but guess what I wrote? Also thought JUN was as good a guess as JAN so came up with PANJUNDRUM. Great puzzle though, got a number of unknowns (LEPTON, MAROCAIN, MAJOR-DOMO) via the wordplay, which is always satisfying.
    Got EDDIES without knowing much about them. Prefer the Georges, thanks to this old ditty. (Apologies if it’s old hat, and yes I know it’s in need of updating):

    George the First was always reckoned
    Vile; but viler George the Second.
    No-one ever said or heard
    A decent thing of George the Third.
    When to heaven the Fourth ascended,
    God be praised! – the Georges ended.

  15. I didn’t think of LEPTON, although I had vaguely heard of it, and bunged in LAPTOP with a question mark, intending to rethink it. Forgot. An enjoyable 24 minutes with that one error.
  16. finished in 15’39 ( or just after Lizborn). Lots of smiles , 27 and 28 for example, and Nana also made me think of Lonnie Donegan immediately. MAROCAIN was last in and just had to believe that it sounded like a plausible fabric as I couldn’t think of anything else to fit the wordplay
  17. Had to confirm morocain, but otherwise ok in 25mins. BUT, call me dim but how is a drum a kitchen item? Sorry I don’t quite get the orchestral allusion. Thanks.
    ps. Does anyone else dislike christian names as answers?
  18. Sorry if this comes up twice.

    OK in 25 mins, but had to check marocain. I am missing the kitchen element of drum….missing the orchestral allusion too. Help please!
    ps. Anyone else dislike christian names as answers?

  19. Could have done with a slightly easier one for Monday after golf. A bit of a struggle this with MAROCAIN particularly obscure. LEPTON was easy but the king edwards rather escaped me when solving and got EDDIES from the checkers. Well blogged K
  20. Oh lordie. Four weeks into my attempt to become an online solver and I’m about ready to give it up. Still below 50% of ‘all correct’ submissions. I just can’t seem to fill in one of these online grids without errors. I’ve slowed down and tried checking through before hitting ‘submit’ but I can’t seem to spot errors that would be ovbivous on paper (and which I probably wouldn’t have made in the first place). Today was typical – a respectable time but one error which it then took me ten minutes to find. Turned out I’d somehow typed ULNEE.

    Is it just me who can’t seem to think straight when looking at a screen? I’m having other problems, too. Anagrams, which I would normally scribble out alongside the grid, take me much longer to see.

    Looks like I’ve just got to face it: I’m the Windows 98 of online solving, condemned to be a figure of fun for geeks with their Linux power boxes… I feel like Mel Smith in that old sketch: I’d like to purchase a gramophone, please.

    Is anyone else struggling like this? Anyone have any suggestions (apart from going back to printouts, which would feel like humiliation at this point)?

    1. Take heart Sotira I can’t make the damn thing work propery either. I just gave up and went back to pen, paper, coffee pot and deep comfortable arm chair.
    2. Keep trying! I worked into it by using the old smartphone app. At first the grid seems impossible but it gets easier. Anagrams are easier on paper but there is no law to say you can’t have a scratchpad to hand.
    3. Not just you, sotira, but full marks for having a go, I wouldn’t even attempt to solve on-line. Part of the enjoyment of crossword solving for me is that it’s an activity that gets me away from sitting at a computer where I spend too much of my life these days.
    4. I don’t usually solve online but when I do I’ve had very similar problems. My new approach is a total ban on post-solve checking. The resulting fear of typos seems to have an appropriately bracing effect… mostly.
      And I ALWAYS have a piece of paper for anagrams.
      1. Well, thank you all for the suggestions and words of comfort. Very relieved to hear that I’m not the only one. I’m convinced that my brain works differently – and even more erratically than usual – when looking at a screen.

        Vallaw – the idea of attempting this on a smartphone fills me with dread. I began this experiment while travelling a few weeks ago and using a little Netbook. This device came close to being defenestrated (without opening the window first) from my hotel room on several occasions.

        keriothe / vallaw – it hadn’t actually occurred to me to have a piece of paper to hand. You see? Brain utterly scrambled by the presence of computer screen.

        Jimbo and jacckt – I suspect I’m going to end up back with you chaps in the armchair and coffeepot brigade which, I’m pretty sure, was how God intended the Times to be solved.

        But my bloody-minded streak is such that I’m determined to complete a week of correct submissions before quitting so that at least I can say “I did it.” I shall wearily perservere.

        1. I think the software has to take a large part of the blame here. I’m not sure what the grid filling protocol is. Do you type entire words in always, which involves typing over what you’ve got in the checkers and seems inherently inefficient, or do you laboriously click on the blanks, possibly involving greater inefficiencies? The software also seems to make very strange and seemingly arbitrary decisions as to whether you are filling across or down, and invariably I find I’ve typed an entire word in one square, or the last three letters of an across clue, when I thought that the computer understood that I wanted to be going down. I think the filling the grid idea just doesn’t translate to the small or big screen.

          What if every clue just had spaces next to it into which you typed your answer. Any spaces corresponding to checkers would be automatically filled from completed clues, and attempts to alter them to something other than what they were would produce a warning note as to where the clash was arising. There would be a parallel grid being filled by the computer itself, satisfyingly filling as the clues fell, and so you could see where work needed to be done.

          Alternatively place a tick box beside every clue, which when ticked meant the grid squares for that clue were locked, and any attempt to type over them ignored, so that typing a whole word across checkers would leave the checkers as they were and no completed word could be typed over when you thought you had made it clear you wanted to be going in the other direction.

          I can see how practice might make you better at the current system, but why practise at something inherently flawed with the sole aim of getting used to the flaws, particularly when the comfy sofa is beckoning?

      1. koro – I can’t disagree with anything you’ve said. It’s all a little reminiscent of the claim that NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pen that would write (probably quite badly) in space while the Russians took pencils.

        I’m going to pretend that my determination to crack online solving is motivated by the spirit of discovery rather than a neurotic obsession or fear of being left behind (I’m reading Alain de Botton’s “Status Anxiety” and I keep thinking he must have met me).

        But there are some genuinely interesting questions about whether technology shapes our thinking. Crossword solvers seem to divide into the mathematically inclined and the verbally inclined, as well as a few with equal skills in both areas. I wonder if online solving is working better for any particular group.

        Martin – Hi, and thank you. And lucky you – few things in life are quite as good as having a kitten around. I know what you mean about the competitive bug – that leaderboard is a powerful drug, though I’m not sure I like myself for being drawn to it quite so much (see earlier reference to Status Anxiety!). And I’m not sure it’s good for my sometimes precarious mental equilibrium. There’s just a whole lot more Zen in solving alone with pen and paper.

        I’m sure there are some profound insights to be had from considering these questions of Solving and Being, but right now there’s a man with a jackhammer taking our chimney down about eight feet from where I’m sitting and I’m blowed if I can think of one.

        1. One area where online really helps is when you travel as much as I do and find yourself in airports where there might be a PC one can access, but, generally, there’s no printer. I’m currently in the Qantas lounge at Narita, Tokyo and have the choice of both my own Netbook and Qantas’ PCs but they only have printed copies of “The Australian” or the “Sydney Morning Herald” and yesterday’s at that.
          Travelling also helps when there’s work to be done at home. Demolish a chimney? Sorry, got to go on a trip! And kittens are wonderful but not when they INSIST on walking across the keyboard! That’s where the printed paper comes in handy!
          1. Very fair point about travel.

            One of our cats eats the Times crossword as it comes off the printer so I’m not sure there’s a cat-proof technology available.

    6. Hello Sotira, Bit “day-late-and-a-dollar-short” but I enjoy your comments! I used to just print the Saturday crossword then potter. But once the new Times Crossword Club website appeared I became bitten by the competitive bug, not to mention the blogging bug! It is a moot point whether I spend more time solving the crossword or blogging about it. I am now a firm believer in online solving. I have a small, lightweight, Netbook and a wireless connection at home so I can sit on the back patio to keep an eye on what our new kitten is up to. I also sometimes, in an attempt to be sociable (!), take my Netbook into the lounge and attempt to solve the crossword while watching TV with my wife. That is not entirely appreciated! When I’m on my frequent(business) travels, it doesn’t matter, of course.
      I keep a pad of paper by my Netbook to help solve anagrams and work out wordplay in other clues and whisper it not, but I keep one or two “aids”, such as dictionary.com, open in other tabs!
      The net result is that I’m now completely comfortable with online solving and I’m sure that you will become used to it, too. In my case, I do get the occasional blue-screen shut-downs, something that doesn’t happen with the printed copy, of course. If only there wasn’t that wretched computer clock hovering top left!
  21. Happy enough to finish, although also had a near miss with LAPDOG – until some fleeting memory of a Brian Cox documentary flashed into existence just long enough to be detected. Thought cluing TREELESS as something the Arctic happens to be was a bit desperate, but perhaps only because it held me up for so long. Well over an hour.
  22. Well well well… count me in for TWO mistakes today, with PALLETTE and LAPTOP. Better luck tomorrow.
  23. Ouch! About 45 minutes, leaving me feeling like the victim of a Monday ambush. MAROCAIN and LEPTON from the wordplay, thought EDDIES was clever, although I couldn’t identify which of them came to grief in 1553. But, for heavens sake, I came to grief myself with my last entry, NENE, oops, where I didn’t see either a definition or the wordplay. So I had no chance there but to guess, wrongly as it turns out. Regards.
  24. I cleared this in about 40 mins on train and tube. I thought that LEPTON was excellent.

    Regarding the non adjacent subtraction at 24d I thought that ‘GUT REMOVED SEPARATELY’….’BEFORE BUtCHERING’ was sufficient to indicate the intention.
    I rather enjoyed this one. Thanks for the review, Koro!

    1. Yes, I agree it was well signposted, but is it the thin end of the wedge? I’m wondering when compound anagrams are going to start appearing. They seem to acceptable in other places.
  30. «Демократия несовершенна, но ничего лучше человечество пока не придумало», – сказал Уинстон Черчилль.
    Так ли это?
    У птицы два крыла… У планеты два полюса… Вы можете представить себе птицу с одним крылом или планету с одним полюсом? Нет? Но именно в таком асимметричном обществе мы живем и именно такой однокрылый мир мы строим! Не верите? Судите сами.
    Наука развивается семимильными шагами и современное человечество знает то, чего не знал английский премьер-министр. Он не знал, например, о Законе Тождества Противоположного. Между тем этот Закон позволяет понять, в чем ошибались в свое время коммунисты и в чем ошибаются в наше время демократы. Главной их ошибкой является ПРОТИВОРЕЧИЕ между ПРОТИВОПОЛОЖНЫМИ формами собственности и власти. Нужно понимать, что речь идет о Частной и Государственной Собственности и, соответственно, о Личной и Общественной Власти. Если бы политики не придумывали свои законы, а ПОЗНАВАЛИ и вместо термина “законотворчество” вооружились термином ЗАКОНОПОЗНАНИЕ (объективный закон нельзя придумать – его можно только познать), то дело пошло бы на лад.
    Так вот, согласно Закону Тождества Противоположного, который пока, к сожалению, не преподают в школах, коммунисты совершили трагическую ошибку, поставив государственную собственность НАД частной, а общественную власть над личной. Результат – социально-экономический кризис. Причина – нарушение Закона Тождества (РАВНОВЕСИЯ) Противоположного. По сути, они национализировали частную собственность и обобществили личность. Что делают сегодня демократы? Они делают то же самое, что делали коммунисты, только с точностью до наоборот. Они приватизировали государственную собственность и личность сегодня фактически игнорирует общественные нормы и устои. Другими словами, современная демократия – это форменный произвол личности по отношению к обществу. Результат – социально-экономический кризис.
    Пора, наконец, уяснить раз и навсегда – у птицы должно быть ДВА КРЫЛА, а у нашей экономики должно быть ДВЕ СОБСТВЕННОСТИ – Частная и Государственная.
    Причем Частная Собственность не подлежит национализации, а Государственная Собственность – приватизации, а тот, кто это сделал, совершил тем самым экономическое Преступление, отрубив одно крыло экономической птице.
    Если же руководствоваться ОБЪЕКТИВНЫМ Законом Тождества Противоположного, на котором, между прочим, СТОИТ ВСЕЛЕННАЯ, то не нужно национализировать частную собственность и не нужно приватизировать государственную. Нужно просто сесть и разобраться, наконец, что есть частная собственность и что есть государственная, а затем передать Частную Собственность в руки Личности (ТОВАРОПРОИЗВОДСТВО), а Государственную Собственность – в руки Общества (СЫРЬЕ). При этом даже можно отказаться от системы налогообложения (придуманной господами для своих холопов), поскольку производить частную собственность и, следовательно, обогащаться можно будет только через производство материальных и духовных ценностей, не обкладывая налогом Творца этих самых ценностей, а продавая ему сырье для производства его товаров. Если же допустить к общественной собственности личность, то мы превратим людей не в творцов, а паразитов, которые будут жить за счет эксплуатации наших природных богатств, а не за счет производства товаров и услуг (так называемый феномен олигархов).
    Может, хватит смешить Вселенную и пора, наконец, построить что-то получше демократии?

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