Times 24848

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 52:07

I started slowly, due to tiredness more than anything else, but managed to rouse myself a bit after half an hour or so to finish a little stronger. But I think my time would have been considerably quicker had I tackled it over my more usual lunchtime, instead of the wee small hours of the morning.

I was held up in the NW corner for a while, by assuming that 2d was going to start ABS…

On edit – I clearly must have been tired since I completely failed to spot that it’s a pangram – something I normally look for as soon as I see a Q or a Z. I suspect that Jonathan (vinyl1) is probably correct in his parsing of CASE IN POINT, shame though, I quite liked my O in PINT idea. I didn’t have a problem with ‘a la’ meaning prepared with – I was thinking Duck a l’Orange.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 PANCREAS = N (New) + C (simple key) in AREAS (parts) after P (piano)
6 DUFF + ER – a rabbit can be a poor performer in a game or sport.
9 SHAKE ONES HEAD = (A NOD HAS HE SEEK)*
10 QUARRY – dd
11 OVER(CO + A)T
13 S(TEE + LINES)S
15 S(M)EW – I didn’t know this breed of sea duck, nor that a baste was a long loose temporary stitch. It went in a a guess, but there was little else it could be. My last in.
16 J + A(B)S
18 CO + PERNICioUS
21 COUNTlESS
22 ALPACA = A LA about CAP rev
23 IN THE PIPELINE – dd
25 DE + V + OUT
26 EXISTENT = (SENT)* in EXIT
Down
2 ASSAULT = “A SALT”
3 Culture + HAIR + PER + SON
4 E + VERY
5 SAN JOSE = OS in (JEANS)*
6 D(ISP)ENSER
7 FOE (Friends of the Earth)
8 Deliberately omitted – think chess
12 CASEIN + P(O)INT – Spit can be a slang term for nothing, hence O. It has been pointed out that CASEIN (protein in milk) + POINT (spit) is a more likely breakdown, which is probably correct, but I should get credit for imagination!
14 INCLEMENT = INCREMENT with the R changed to an L
17 rev hidden
19 PAST(I’M)E
20 UNCLE + AN
22 AZERI = ZERo in AI
24 Time Written Off

43 comments on “Times 24848”

  1. Not too much trouble: 21m. I was unsure of 26ac, thinking through the possibility of EVICTING. But that would have spoiled the pangram, so it had to be something with an X. And, as ever, most trouble with the short answers: JABS and SMEW, closely followed by FOE (didn’t know the acronym) and TWO (hopeless at maths!). My COD’s going to old Copper Knickers.

    Edited at 2011-05-13 02:30 am (UTC)

  2. 20:29 .. booby-traps narrowly avoided, nearly putting in TOO and EXISTING before breaking the habit of a lifetime and actually stopping to think about them.

    COD JABS for that sly ‘when’.

  3. From my usual source:
    • a person inexperienced at something, esp. at playing golf.
    ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Scots dowfart [stupid person,] from douf [spiritless.]
  4. 34’40”. I actually thought, ‘pancreas!’–not a thought I often have–without having the slightest clue as to why it should be, other than piano=p; and I never worked out the parsing until I came to this blog. Sort of similarly, I was sure 16 was JABS, but that was because I sort of thought ‘judge’ was ‘JAS’. (There is JAG in the US.) I go with vinyl on CASE IN POINT.
    On the other hand, I wasn’t pleased with ‘steely’=trustworthy (a trustworthy glare?), nor did I think–nor do I think–that ‘a la’ means ‘prepared with’. COD to 12d.
    1. Nor do I. ‘Prepared by, for, in the style of’ yes, but I wonder if it may be argued that ‘prepared’ covers it on its own and ‘with’ is just padding?
  5. 9:30 with one wrong. I didn’t know baste could mean “stitch”, and so ended up with “smee” at 15A. Which is a duck, though not as good a duck as the answer.

    I don’t have a problem with “à la” meaning “prepared with” – lapin à la moutarde is the first example that comes to mind.

    Favourite clue today was for PANCREAS.

  6. Nice straightforward one this Friday…

    Needed help to fathom the wordplay for 1ac, and AZERI was unknown, but easily gettable. I worked out 12dn as per Vinyl’s explanation.

    Having trawled through the alphabet for something to fit S-E-, and having dismissed SMEW, knowing neither the duck nor the basting, stuck in SEER (as in ‘medium’). Oh well, we live and learn…

    Have a good weekend, everyone, and catch up next week. J

  7. Mostly a steady solve but I became bogged down a couple of times, mainly in the SE corner with ALPACA, AZERI and the bear-trap at 26ac where I went for EXISTING and didn’t consider the possibility of alternatives as I was so relieved at last to come up with a solution that appeared at first glance to fit: EXI(S)TING, the S being an abbreviation used in some sport or other to indicate that a player had been sent off – maybe it could even have been today’s cricketing reference if anyone is ever sent off at cricket!

    I didn’t know that ‘prime’ alone can mean ‘prime number’ or the ‘rabbit = DUFFER’ thing.

    At 15 I had a familiar argument with myself over SMEW or SMEE as I can never remember which is the duck and which is the pirate. According to Collins SMEW is another name for ‘merganser’ so whichever contributor was making a list last week may like to take note.

  8. 15 minutes, so not a Friday stinker. Would have got QUARRY quicker if I remembered the “what goes in front of a U?” rule.
    I rather liked CASEIN POINT, and parsed the clue that way, but my CoD goes to Copper Knickers with memories of his statue in Krakow. Pleased to see someone else enjoys the easy schoolboy humour!
    Didn’t spot the pangram partly because I wasn’t looking, though it might just have helped with AZERI, my last but one. I tend not to spot the hidden Easter eggs either.
  9. 55 minutes, held up by PANCREAS, OVERCOAT(?), COUNTESS(!), STEELINESS (?!), DUFFER & FOE. Having DICKER for DUFFER didn’t help the latter, but I clearly wasn’t on top of my game. I liked CASE IN POINT too, but COD to COUNTESS.
  10. A good puzzle I thought which I very much enjoyed. I liked the clever use of “spit”. 20 minutes to solve.

    Very pleased that people are not saying they’ve never heard of COPERNICUS, one of the all time greats and welcome in the puzzle any time.

    The types of ducks is one of those subjects, like rivers, that one needs to remember. The 4 and 5 letter ones in particular. So: blue, eider, musk, pekin, ruddy, smee, smew, surf, teal, wood

    1. Thanks for the tip.
      I did wonder why I’d plumped for SMEW in the end: it sounded vaguely right somehow. A little googling reveals that the usual explanation applies.
    2. If only Smew had won the Grand National, like Teal, I’d have remembered him!
      1. Smee is dialect for “duck” which would include the smew but others as well.
  11. 27 minutes…but forgot to fill in the missing letter of 24 so a technical dnf. Re duffers, I like the use of ferrets for lowest-order batsmen (sent in after the rabbits). For 8 I think Beckett rather than (directly) chess – a savage remorseless coruscatingly cold gem of a play.
  12. 10 minutes for all but SMEW, another 10 going through all the possible options on that one. I think it’s a terrible clue: it requires two obscure pieces of knowledge and if (like me) you don’t know either of them you can’t enter the answer with confidence.
    However I guessed right in the end, only to find I had already failed by putting in EXISTING. This was one of several answers that I bunged in without full understanding hoping for a good time. Sigh.
    I don’t have a problem with “prepared with” for à la. Of course it doesn’t always mean this (à la niçoise) but sometimes (à la crème) it does.
    1. I’m always reluctant to damn a clue as “terrible” simply because of my own ignorance – it can seem a little crass to those who find your “obscure pieces of knowledge” commonplace. Better to learn from the experience and hope you’ll do better next time.
        1. For what it’s worth, Keriothe, I disagree with Tony (gulp, hope he’s not reading this). It’s true that one man’s obscurity is another’s common knowledge, but it’s pretty obvious when a definition is going to be obscure to at least a significant part of the solving population. And that’s when a good clue should be solvable via some clever wordplay, not via another obscurity.
          On the other hand, perhaps SMEW is not so obscure, given DorsetJimbo’s post, and the fact that SMEW last appeared in this puzzle not so long ago -> http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/650527.html
          Didn’t stop me opting for SMET though, and ruining an otherwise breezy solve.
          1. And now, having read your comments on the Jumbo, I find that we’re in complete agreement! Could have saved my breath. Serves me right for attempting to enter the discussion a day late.
          2. Indeed. Of course what is obscure is entirely subjective (as is whether or not one likes a particular clue) but SMEW seems to have caused a number of people trouble. I stand by my view that this is a poor clue (in an otherwise very enjoyable puzzle) but it’s only that – a view. If we all agreed with each other this would be a rather dull blog!
  13. around an hour for all bar SMEW and ALPACA, the former unknown, as was baste = sew – making that one ungettable – and the latter unfamiliar, with –PAC- insufficient to steer me to the answer via the canny (and to my mind) acceptable ‘prepared with’. Had never heard of ‘casein’ either, so that clue went in a la Dave, with only ‘milk’ understood … but actually misunderstood.
  14. I found this a tough, but always seemingly reachable, challenge and struggled home after an enjoyable hour. Thank you, setter: I always thought that, if I stuck at it, all the wordplays could be resolved. Last in PANCREAS: a bit surprising given the problems mine has given me over the past few years!
  15. Actually I solved the wrong puzzle (I haven’t done 24847 yet, but Friday’s puzzle was already current when I started about 1am here in Central Europe) but my solution seems to be correct, having taken in all about an hour plus a few minutes (with a night’s sleep somewhere in the middle). Last in were DUFFER (a guess from the F in FOE) and SMEW (an even wilder guess, which included guessing that BASTE might have something to do with sewing), both of which I corroborated with Chambers before daring to submit the puzzle. AZERI also unknown but clear from wordplay. No really outstanding clues but still quite enjoyable.
  16. 10:12 for me – but it should really have been faster as everything was thoroughly familiar, (including SMEW, which went straight in).

    I don’t know what dictionary you’re using, but, in all the ones I have access to, “baste” = SEW is a verb (“to sew with loose temporary stitches”, to quote Collins (1986)) rather than a noun, which makes better use of “to” in the clue.

  17. My time was nothing towrite home about, and I also failed to get SMEW. I couid have kicked myself, because I knew the SEW meaning of BASTE, as my mother used to make clothes for us, and she was always basting seams. Ho hum. Gradese
  18. …two of them in fact. Reading this blog it’s nice to find that one isn’t alone. I, too fell into the “bear trap” set in 26ac and put EXISTING. And I also put SMEE in 15ac. There, I had pared down the choices to SEER or SMEE and plumped for the latter. SMEW never even registered. Still, pleasure was to be had in the memory of my Aunt Doris’ (really!) Plum DUFF and in the Pythonesque images conjured up by UNCLEAN (“Bring out yer dead!”) Still, I have now learnt something new; a few new somethings in fact. DorsetJimbo has enhanced my duck vocabulary and I now know that a baste is also a stitch-up. 25 comments thus far and, although we have had two Copper Knickers, no-one has yet made a play on words and made 1ac into the Eurostar terminal.
  19. I thought this was a miler puzzle, finishing confidently in about 25 minutes, ending with PANCREAS. But(!?) I have two wrong, so a defeat for me today, and a bow to the setter. I had both SMEE and EXISTING. Better luck next week. My COD goes to QUARRY, which was sort of hiding in plain sight. Regards to all.
      1. I read it as ‘miller’, so hade visions of a stout and pugnacious type of puzzle solved with a hangover.
  21. I thought this was a good puzzle. Perhaps I was tireder than yesterday because I took ages to see 1, 7, 21 and 23, delays that pushed my time to more than 40 minutes. I avoided the trap at 26 (actually, considering the wordplay I don’t think it was a trap) but I did enter SMEE not SMEW.

    I particularly liked the clues to PANCREAS and ENDGAME (indirect definition and wordplay nicely combined). Less keen on the definition for STEELINESS.

  22. anyone else remember the controversy about azeri/azerbaijani a little while back?
    1. Yes, it was referred to on Sunday when we had a castle/rook debate. It was a retired colonel with a particularly vehement point of view. Here’s the link again for those who missed it on Sunday.
  23. I wasn’t able to do this puzzle until now. I’ve had fun reading the comments because all the difficulties of SMEW reflects the overwhelming masculine nature of this blog. A lot of women would immediately recognise both meanings of BASTE – in cookery and in sewing. “Basting” in sewing is also called “tacking”. It’s what you do to temporarily hold the pieces of a garment together while you machine it. Nice for the ladies to have an advantage – makes a change from all the cricket terms! 29 minutes
    1. I actually learned the sewing meaning from a cookbook: ‘The I Hate to Cookbook’, where the author relates the story of a friend, new to cooking, trying her first roast turkey, and dutifully taking it out of the oven every half-hour and restitching it.
      ‘smew’, by the way, is yet another word I learned by doing the NY Times crosswords; not as predictable as ‘etui’, but an old standard.
    2. I was particularly miffed about the baste clue, as I am well known in my family for taking over at the breakfast buffet egg station – in the style of Geoffrey Palmer in Fawlty Towers when no one would cook his sausages – because no one will baste the fried eggs! And telling your average Thai, Chinese or Malay cook you’d like eggs basted is tantamount to telling my wife that I used to bowl away swingers with a classic action. You get rewarded with a very blank expression.
    3. Oh dear, falooker, if you are doing Saturdays crossword you won’t be amused with 26ac if you want to avoid cricket!
      1. Thanks for the early warning. I save the Saturday puzzle for the day the blog comes out. Must swot up on my cricket…
  24. I followed the links recently to the Colonel. I thought it was odd, as did one or two others. Aren’t peppery retired Colonels supposed to come from Tunbridge Wells (and not Derbyshire) and be Disgusted?!

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