Times 24853 – stump the blogger!

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : After 18 minutes and 32 seconds, with almost 10 of them staring at one answer, I put in the only word I could think of that fit, and it came back as one incorrect answer. A fine-toothed comb later and I find my error, which I guess means my tossed in answer works, but I have no idea how.

I’m sure I’m missing something obvious, and it will be pointed out shortly, so I may have some editing to do. Up until that point, I enjoyed this – once crafty anagram at 8 down that held me up for a while. Still got the feeling of defeat, so away we go!

Across
1 TRIAD: 1 in TRAD
4 FLOWERPOT: Can’t make head or tail of the cryptic or the clue, and the only word I could see that fit the checking letters was FLOWERPOT. The quote appears to be from A Misummer Night’s Dream, but I can’t see the relevance
9 UNDER FIRE: double definition, one cryptic
10 SPROG: hidden, a child
11 BRA,ZEN: liked “something that supports” for BRA
12 TAKE ROOT: A,K,ER in TOOT
14 APARTHEID: Anagram of (PAIR,HATED). It’s also an anagram of HIT PARADE but that wouldn’t help the surface
16 DRAWN: N,WARD reversed
17 LIMIT: M1 in LIT
19 ROUND(sandwich), DOWN(drink)
21 KING LEAR: KIN, then (REGAL)*
22 OGRESS: PROGRESS without PR
25 TATTY: sounds like TATIE or any variant thereon
26 DOCTORATE: DO ORATE about CT
27 HARPOONER: SHARP,SOONER without the first letters
28 EJECT: C(about) in JET(stone) beside E (end of platE)
 
Down
1 THUMB,NAILS,KETCH: liked this charade
2 deliberately omitted, if you need it you can call for assistance and see who picks up
3 DERWENT: UNDERWENT without U,N
4 FAIR: FAIL without the L then R – definition is “Just”
5 OVER,AND,OUT
6 E,AS,TEND
7 PORTOLANO: got this from the wordplay, take the first letters off SPORT, NO, PLAN, SO – a Middle Ages Italian navigational guide
8 TIGHTEN ONES BELT: (SEEING,NTH,BOTTLE)
13 BEAR GARDEN: (BAR,ENRAGED)* – perhaps a Freudian slip, I put in BEER GARDEN and now feel silly. Maybe a BEER GARDEN with an enraged mammal inside?
15 AXMINSTER: X(cross) in A, MINSTER(a cathedral) – got this from definition
18 TALLY HO: TALLY(sum) and H(er)O
20 DOG(tail),ROSE(came up)
23 ERAS(times),E
24 ACE,R

49 comments on “Times 24853 – stump the blogger!”

  1. George, I’m guessing 4ac is just a cryptic def. That’s what a flowerpot does eh?
    29m this morning and found this a very, um, intelligent puzzle. As in: I wasn’t! One wrong: EGEST for EJECT. Bum!
    The self-referential (&lit-ish) qualities of 21ac (KING LEAR) were the highlight. And, for ulaca, here’s the missing TRIAD from yesterday!
    1. I was umming and aahing EGEST and EJECT and the stone clinched it for me. I guess 4ac could be a cryptic def, if it is, it’s so far from my cup of tea it could well be a cup of tea.
      1. Much the same experience as yours, George. I think Mctext has to be right thatht that 4ac is simply a very quirky and offbeat definition of what a flowerpot does (more Guardian than Times?) As far as I can see the fact that it is also a quote (I think) from Puck in AMND is of no relevance whatever other than as an odorous red herring designed to fool us into wasting much time trying to work a Waggledagger reference into the solution. If so, I was duly fooled.
  2. Pretty much identical experience to George’s, even down to the slip with BEER GARDEN (we must be misspending the same eternal youths), so my 23 minutes and change counts for nought. A good five of those minutes were spent staring at the clue for FLOWERPOT before the light very slowly dawned.
  3. Indeed, McText, I got my TRIAD and we all got our A1/M1 again, but I still fell three short in an hour and a half. Left hand went in quite quickly (apart from BRAZEN, my COD), but the right proved very resistant: guessed right at the Bill-and-Ben clue and the ‘spit’ one, but my luck ran out with ERASE (I shoved in ‘evade’) and PORTALANO (nice clue – but I failed to decipher it fully, only getting as far as PORT from ‘sport’, and wrote some nonsense). I also had ‘beer garden’ despite being unable to account for the ‘ber’.

    With 4ac and 28ac especially, this had something of a TLS/Mephisto flavour.

  4. About 45 minutes, ending with FLOWERPOT, with the same reaction (huh?) as others. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize or remember ‘stone’ as ‘jet’, so I fell in the EGEST hole with mctext. I considered EJECT first, but ‘spit out’ seemed more EGEST-ian, so I threw it in (up?). Otherwise a very good puzzle, I thought, all around. I liked the ‘little canvas’ for THUMBNAIL SKETCH, but COD to BRAZEN for elusiveness. OGRESS as well. Regards to everyone, and thanks to the setter.
  5. Printed this off last night and completed it in bed before getting up.. needed to refer to the under-bed dictionary for 7dn but otherwise no problems. Briefly considered egest, but couldn’t connect it in any way with the wordplay..

    Science score: 0/10, though curiously the art score is not high either apart from King Lear, & the sketch I suppose

  6. 27 mins today. COD to 1d for its originality but I had the same bother as others with portolano and flowerpot, the latter seeming to me a bit dodgy. Specifically, why herb?
  7. 35 minutes, then I went back to review some of the clues I hadn’t understood and swiftly came to the conclusion that EJECT must be wrong. About 10 minutes later it suddenly dawned on me that it had been right in the first place.

    Didn’t know PORTOLANO but the wordplay and checkers meant it had to be correct.

    I’m not sure I have ever seen the slang for potato in the singular. I’m familiar with ‘tatties’ of course and I sort of assumed that one on its own would be spelt ‘tatty’in which case ‘sounded’ would be unnecessary, so I’ve learned something from this clue.

    4ac was rather fun and distracted me with thoughts of Puck travelling the earth in 40 minutes, before I spotted what the setter was up to here.

    I tried a couple of Club puzzles on-line yesterday (only the Concise ones) and my brain seized up completely. I find it very hard to think in that environment, so hats off to everyone here who tackles the Cryptic that way. I missed being able to tick off the clues as I solved them.

    1. Keep at it! I now do the Concise online every day and it gets much easier with practice … and rather fun. As for cryptics, I generally do the Sunday one online, but always need a pencil and paper for the anagrams.
  8. Bah! 18 minutes with a typo of PORT A LANO which I failed to check so two wrong. Threw in FLOWERPOT for the same reasons as our blogger (it fitted!). Not been commenting here recently, must make more of an effort.
    Apart from that I did like the charade at 1d.
  9. Flowerpot – my solution. Whole word – puts a girdle round(contains)the earth – breakdown to produce (flower) herb (pot).
    1. Yes I suppose so. “Flower” for “produce” seems a bit loose though: produce flowers yes. Just produce… hmm.
  10. Any chance someone could spell out the clue for 4ac? I won’t be able to buy the paper today but am curious to see this controversial clue! Thanks
  11. About 20 minutes for all but FLOWERPOT and PORTOLANO. About another 20 minutes on those without success. I put in FLOWERPOT eventually, although I didn’t understand why. I thought a FLOWERPOT might be a sort of herb, and unless it is (and I haven’t found any evidence for this) I agree entirely with tringmardo’s comment above. Dodgy.
    However I failed completely on PORTOLANO, and for that I can only blame myself because the wordplay is entirely clear. I got as far as PORTO_A_N_.
  12. Enjoyable and frustrating in equal measure! DNF. Knew PORTOLANO – but just couldn’t remember it and didn’t spot George’s rendering of the wordplay; could make no sense of FLOWERPOT (still can’t – sorry, vallaw) and still puzzling why ‘closed’ = DRAWN (wordplay is clear enough). On the other hand lots of good, accessible clues which provided useful checkers for tougher challenges.
      1. Thanks, kororareka: you’ve highlighted one of my blindspots. For some reason I only use ‘draw’ the curtains in the sense of opening the curtains.
  13. 21 minutes to a dnf, with a lot of time taken to try filling in the gaps in P-R-O-A-O. I see how the clue works once I know what the answer is, but I thought the intervening words among the headless fodder made it much harder to work from wordplay to (otherwise unknown) answer. I was working with “0 MAP” somewhere in the middle, but was not sufficiently persuaded by PORTOMAPO to enter it. I can’t remember seeing this device before – first extract four words from several and then decapitate them, but I guess we all only end up grumpy when we don’t see the game.
    Otherwise, a nice chewy offering, in which BEER GARDEN was too easy an entry until checking the anagrist properly (and beer gardens can also be pretty shambolic, in my experience!)
    CoD to the schoolboy favourite and yet another variation on over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder in BRAZEN
  14. I too spent so much time agonising over FLOWERPOT and PORTOLANO(eh?), that I neglected to spot that BEER GARDEN didn’t comply with the given letters. Then again, in my experience, beer gardens in Australian pubs are frequently scenes of disturbances, so it was a more likely answer than the unknown bear garden. COD to KING LEAR ahead of ROUND DOWN.
  15. sailed through in 40 minuts but fell into the Beer garden rather than the bear garden and rather upset by that!
  16. Gave up after an hour with three left – 4a, 4d & 7. I’d pencilled in QUIT for 4d for no good reason other than it completed a pangram, and was toying with QUOTE—T for 4a. Never came close to untangling 7 and don’t know the word. I probably should have got FAIR, but I’m not sure I’d have completed it even then.

    Oh dear, I’m not feeling quite so heroic today, colonialboy!

    1. Didn’t know SPROG (now I do) or JET or PORTOLANO but at least had the opportunity to brush up on my Italian and sailing lore.I have a doctor friend who’s
      just put his 37′ Arlberg into the water. I’m sure we’ll have a nice, enlightening chat
      about portolano whilst sailing Lake Ontario. That’s one of the pluses about these puzzles…always something new and interesting. As for heroics I like to compare my efforts to those of baseball players…’though not batting a thousand I’m somewhere around 850 to 900 which is pretty darn good in anybody’s book.
        1. At least, not bad for a Canuck,eh? 😉

          p.s. that should read Alberg

  17. Agree with z8b8d8k on PORTOLANO, and with Vallaw on FLOWERPOT. Managed to guess FLOWERPOT, which makes it a good clue, but failed to see PORTOLANO, which makes it outrageously unfair!
  18. I found this a bit of a slog. It helped that I got FAIR quickly so had the F in place for the dreaded FLOWERPOT. I tinkered with FENUGREEK as the herb but in the end decided it was just a cryptic definition. I didn’t know PORTOLANO and went to aids for it. I had too many question marks for this to be truly enjoyable. Maybe it was just too hard for me… 45 minutes
  19. Can see the Flowerpot NOW, but think it’s a bit tenuous – Produce=Flower? Ummmmmm

    However, don’t know why people had a problem with 13Dn? Straight forward anagram of bar and enraged, and 28 Ac come to that. Saw them both right away.

    1. Take one measure of unfamiliarity with the expression “bear garden”.
      Combine with a much more familiar expression (“beer garden”) which leaps out from the crossing letters, very nearly fits the anagram fodder, and could be said to fit the definition.
      Add a pinch of haste.
      Voila!
      I very nearly fell into this bear trap (or should that be beer trap?) myself but fortunately was just unsure enough to check the anagram fodder.
  20. Having slept on it and pondered on it more than is good for a person, I kind of like FLOWERPOT. It has a feel of an old-fashioned riddle about it – What am I? – as well as a perfectly supportable cryptic.

    It also got me thinking about Dead Poets Society and that actor who now plays Hugh Laurie’s best (well, only) friend in House. I recall he played Puck in the play within the film.

    And here’s a curiosity… (I’ve put a space in the link to pre-empt posting problems – just replace it with a full stop)

    danielbowen com/2006/07/11/newspaper-house/

  21. 20 minutes so not so difficult but well constructed apart from 4A FLOWERPOT. My last in. What else would fit? “flower”=”produce” – I don’t think so. “herb”=”pot” – really? It’s rubbish as you can see from all the people who simply couldn’t get it. Pity.
  22. This took me 40 minutes, with FLOWERPOT as the final entry. I also wrote BEER initially but quickly corrected my error. I liked the & lit at 10, particularly, and the clues in general. I do have my doubts about the success of 4ac, though it’s certainly got this site straining to explain it. Whether ‘produce’ is merely a link word or intended as the cryptic indication of FLOWER (slightly dubious in my view) is debateable; surely only the setter can answer that. But the cryptic definition and literary relevance were clear enough (once I’d finally got the answer). Puck was enjoined by Oberon to produce “that flower, the herb…”, the juice of which will bewitch Titania.
  23. Flower = to produce
    Pot = herb – Rastafarian drug reference
    and a flowerpot girdles the earth inside it
  24. Despite best efforts, still got one wrong. More haste etc…put in BEER. Even with all the explanations for FLOWERPOT, I still think it’s pants!
  25. As with yesterday’s, I got nowhere before dinner, was in no condition after dinner to tackle it–although that didn’t stop me from trying–slept on it, and finished after breakfast. No idea of the time. I was relieved to see that wiser heads than mine also came up with ‘mafia’ at 2d and ‘combo’ at 1ac, as well as ‘egest’, my one wrong ‘un; somehow ‘eject’ never occurred to me. I also wasted time on 22ac, trying to make ‘Gorgon’ (continue= go on) work.
    I felt a grudging admiration for FLOWERPOT once I got it, but while I have no problem with pot=herb, I don’t see flower (intrans.)= produce (trans.).
  27. 10:40 here. I had hopes of a fast time, but (like others) was held up by PORTOLANO (which I knew perfectly well and should have got straight away) and FLOWERPOT (where, without any crossing letters, I’d rashly bunged in SPEEDWELL).

    I’m almost certain that the latter has absolutely nothing to do with FLOWER = “produce” or POT = “herb”, but is simply (as dyste points out) a cryptic definition, with a straightforward reference to Act 2, Scene 1 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

    Oberon. …
    Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
    Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
    Puck. I’ll put a girdle round the earth
    In forty minutes.

  28. If you take ‘herb’ in its botanical, rather than common, sense, as ‘any seed-bearing plant which does not have a woody stem and dies down to the ground after flowering’ (Oxford online) – think pot plant – then Tony Sever’ s parsing – not to mention, Sotira’s riddle – makes very good sense: ‘I, the flowerpot, contain earth in which a herb can be grown’.
    1. The “herb” in question (see my reply to sotira’s comment) was actually Shakespeare’s

      little western flower,
      Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
      And maidens call it, Love-in-idleness.

      The setter could have used “love-in-idleness” instead of “herb”, but I think s/he was right to use “herb” for several reasons, perhaps most importantly because it appears just a couple of lines before “I’ll put a girdle round the earth”.

      1. Point taken. My more postmodern lecturers at university would have been appalled at all this speculation over authorial intention. Perhaps we’ll never know for sure what was intended.

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