Solving time 20 minutes
Another large helping of poetry associated references plus a fairly obscure reference to a cricket team that many will, I suspect, find a bit baffling. At 15D we have an interesting little quirk. I only have access to Chambers which gives it as two unrelated words, which is what I would have considered it. Perhaps one of the other references gives it as a single word?
A reasonably typical Times daily cryptic with no particularly outstanding features.
Across | |
---|---|
1 | SQUILLION – S(QUILL-I)ON; irritating description of a large number used by non-mathematicians; |
6 | COBRA – CO-BRA; groans from the ladies; |
9 | ROMANIC – OR reversed – MANIC; soldiers=ordinary ranks=OR; of the language; |
10 | DENIZEN – DEN-I-ZEN; (electric) current=i (physics); |
11 | MANIFESTLY – MAN-(if set)*-LY; conspicuously is the definition; |
12 | POET – PO-ET; reference Robert Bridges 1844-1930 poet laureate; |
14 | IDYLL – hidden reversed (si)LLY DI(spute); more poetry; |
15 | BUTTERFAT – B(UTTER-F)AT; |
16 | SUCCOURED – sounds like “suckered” – old slang for “had”; |
18 | EIGER – E-(t)IGER; mountain in the Swiss Alps with an infamous north face; |
20 | ROBE – ROB(ert)-E; |
21 | VERTEBRATE – BET REV all reversed-RATE; feel sure=BET; minister=REV; charge=RATE; |
25 | EARLDOM – (or medal)*; |
26 | ASUNDER – AS-UNDER; |
27 | TITHE – TI-TH(is)-E; |
28 | WINDSWEPT – WIND(ie)S-WEPT; West Indies cricket team=Windies then lose “ie”=that; |
Down | |
1 | SCRUM – SC(R)UM; |
2 | UNMANLY – UN(ion)-MA(i)NLY; i=influence at first; many modern youths; |
3 | LONGFELLOW – LONG-FELLOW; tall=LONG; peer=FELLOW; reference Longfellow’s poem about goings on under the chestnut tree; where would Times setters be without their poets and poetry?; |
4 | INCUS – INCU(r)-S; small bone in the inner ear known as the anvil; |
5 | NODULATED – U-DON reversed-LA-TED; gent=TED (makes a change from thug); |
6 | CONE – C-NO reversed-E; Japanese drama=NO; |
7 | BUZZ,OFF – slang for euphoria=BUZZ; slang for rush away=BUZZ OFF; |
8 | ANNOTATOR – ANN(OT)A-TO-R; books=Old Testament=OT; |
13 | HEREABOUTS – (saoteur he)*; the “as” looks like padding; |
14 | INSURGENT – INSUR(G)E-NT; cover=INSURE; key=G(music); book=New Testament=NT; if it’s not poets it’s religion; |
15 | BARLEY,MOW – two words as far as I’m concerned; BAR-LEY-MO-W; LEY=lea=grassland; MOW=a heap of grain in a barn; today the name of thousands of country pubs; |
17 | CABARET – CA(BARE)T; vessel=catamaran=CAT; |
19 | GRANDEE – G(RAND)EE; an American VIP, clearly; |
22 | TRAIN – three meanings 1=aim; 2=instruct; 3=discipline; |
23 | EGRET – (r)EGRET; standard crossword setter’s bird; |
24 | EDGE – a guess on my part – cryptic definition? |
“The village blacksmith he was there, da da di da di da”!
A grandee is Spanish, not American. And there are insurgents who are anything but freedom fighters.
I wonder if I’m missing something at 24dn because I don’t understand it.
Co-bra raised a smile and it makes a change for the river to be Po not the usual Dee or R.
Liked the manly / manifestly crossreference.
Re 1A squillion. A google search turns up a whole list of names for mind boggling big numbers. I wonder if any of these have appeared in a Times grid:
gazillion
sextillion (10^21)
decillion (10^33)
vigintillion (10^63)
googol (10^100)
googolplex (10^Googol)
NT for ‘book’ as in ‘I bought him a Phillips New Testament for Easter’, I reckon, the NT often being sold separately.
And the “Barley Mow” I know is the drinking song: two words, just like that — as Tommy Cooper used to say.
I didn’t know the LONGFELLOW poem or INCUS. I guessed that “brand” must mean “sword” based on “brandish”. However NO is becoming very familar indeed!
The Oxford Shorter only gives BARLEYMOW’ as one word, just beneath “barley-hood… a fit of drunkenness or of bad temper brought on by drinking”, which strikes me as rather a useful word.
Last in WINDSWEPT
I also thought that ‘edge’ had something to do with GE, but if you type in ‘ED’ you only get Con Ed, so maybe not. But I’m sure corporate abbreviations and stock symbols will eventually appear in some puzzle.
Clues of the Day: 6ac (COBRA), 20ac (ROBE).
First in, strangely, was SQUILLION, which seemed likely from the word play though I have never seen it before. Last in were most of the crossing words to that, SCRUM, UNMANLY, preceded by INCUS, which I also got only from wordplay, and then ROMANIC (after trying for ages to use COMO or something else meaning “like” in Spanish) and MANIFESTLY. It’s funny how everything just falls into place after a while (now all I have to do is shorten the while it takes).
I didn’t understand EDGE either but assumed it was a brand name (of some manly scent, aftershave or such); the sword explanation is certainly better. And this puzzle, though not resounding, was better than yesterday’s.
Anyway, 2 hours still left me missing 4dn thanks to a mistake with 9ac (ROMANCE – silly of me).
I’ll never reach the speeds of most of you as I do it in the evening whilst watching TV.
Many contributors here started on the Telegraph and then moved to the Times (I did so in 1957!) You’ll gradually adjust to the differences and this blog will help you enormously
Don’t be fooled by the speeds.. some few are indeed very fast, but many are not, we get all sorts here. The faster the solve, the more likely it is that a time will be mentioned 😉
My acquaintance with BARLEYMOW is much the same as joekobi’s – from the song, possibly even from Singing Together, Rhythm and Melody. (I tried to find it on YouTube, but the versions that came up were Irish and rather different from the one I know.)
I myself under the influence of great quantities of sparkling fruity lexia once solved a puzzle in 3.4 seconds ..