Times 24,875 A Hymn to Herbalism

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 20 minutes

A largely straightforward puzzle leavened with some obscurities and no less than five “two meanings” clue constructions. The top went in quite quickly but I slowed a little in the botom half. I had to derive both the herbal remedy and the hymn from wordplay and checkers and knew the tall Japanese from Mephisto solving. Overall, nothing to get too excited about.

Across
1 IMPRECISE – (t)IM-PRECIS-E(s);
6 SIGHS – sounds like “size”;
9 LEG-IRON – LEGI(R)ON;
10 HOGARTH – world=earth then replace leader=”e” by “hog”=pig=2D; cartoonist William Hogarth 1697-1764;
11 SISAL – hidden (optic)S-IS-AL(located);
13 RING-A-BELL – two meanings 1=what a town cryer did whilst shouting “oyez” 2=oldish phrase for vague memory;
14 DIALECTIC – DIALECT-I(nspired)-C(omrades);
16 SPAR – SPAR(e); part with “spare” then “short”=remove the “e”;
18 DRAY – YARD reversed; one of the many meanings of “yard” is a pole;
19 ROADWORKS – two meanings 1=training (running mindlessly around the roads) 2=lots of cones and no workmen;
22 SIMPATICO – S(IM)PAT-I-CO; barney=SPAT (slang); film regularly=(f)I(l)M;
24 LAYER – LAY-ER; film=LAYER; set=LAY; let me see=…ER (hesitation);
25 PETUNIA – PET-(AINU reversed); AINU=tall people in Japan (you knew that);
26 TRISHAW – TRISHA-W;
28 NORNS – N-OR-N-S; Urd, Verdande and Skuld (your homework for tonight if you didn’t know them);
29 ELONGATED – (a leg to end)*;
 
Down
1 ILL-USED – (sullied)*;
2 PIG – P(I)G;
3 ENROLLED – EN-ROLLE(r)-D; roller=pigeon, kingfisher or canary – you choose;
4 INNER – (d)INNER;
5 ECHINACEA – E-CHIN(ACE)A; that well known herbal remedy for the immune system;
6 SIGNAL – two meanings;
7 GARDEN,PARTY – Eden=GARDEN (not ex-PM); appreciated the “Conservatives,say”;
8 SCHOLAR – SC(HOL)AR; HOL from H(ouse) O(f) L(ords);
12 STABAT,MATER – STA(BAT-MATE)R; associate=MATE; club=BAT; a hymn I learn from Chambers;
15 TERMINATE – TERM-IN-A-T(re)E;
17 SWILLING – S-WILLING;
18 DUSTPAN – (stand-up)*; “daft” is anagrind; “brush found with this” is definition;
20 SCREWED – S(CREWE)D; Pierre is capital of South Dakota=SD; CREWE is major railway town;
21 BARNES – two meanings 1=area of SW London 2=reference bouncing bomb inventor Barnes Wallis;
23 OUTDO – OUT-DO(n); cap=OUTDO; old hat=OUT; put on=don;
27 HIT – another two meanings;

34 comments on “Times 24,875 A Hymn to Herbalism”

  1. An informative blog as ever!
    Me? You don’t want to know. So 34m: stuck hopelessly in the SE until Trisha dawned. (She does that.) And, in that (SE) region, I was supposed to know SD? I’ve known a few SDs, but this was not among them.
    24ac must be the worst clue we’ve seen for a while eh?
    And (yard) = (pole)?? Is this some kind of boating reference? Can’t be a measurement because a POLE is five-and-a-half-yards.
    Still, I finished it … and that’s enough!
    1. The word “yard” has many meanings. One is a measuring pole. It’s also a rod of authority and a cane and a mast on a sailing ship.

      As to 24A – …er… you might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment!

  2. I really struggled with the bottom half, not helped by throwing in SWIGGING for 17D, which left an unlikely G?Y?? for 24A. SCREWED took far too long, and I didn’t know how the SD was indicated until coming here. Still, I was on a train to London at 5:50am, and I’m not a morning person. I ran out of steam. Top half 5 mins, bottom half 17 mins.
  3. Unlike dorsetjimbo, who was faster than yesterday, I was four times as slow, coming in at just over the hour. Found this a real toughie and fell into every trap in the book, and some of my own devising (throwing in ‘entangled’ for 29). Glad to get there finally. COD 7 for the rather charming idea on the political front, no doubt the Tea Party’s heir.
  4. 34:35, which suggests either Jimbo was on the setter’s wavelength and I wasn’t, or that we have very different ideas about what’s straightforward 🙂

    Never come across TRISHAW, or the relevant sort of roller; and took ages to escape the elephant trap of assuming that Pierre must be French (even having spotted Crewe, didn’t understand how SD fitted in before coming here…)

  5. In my time I have played golf with people who never seemed to be bothered about exactly how they made their score, so I suppose I should be pleased to have got my par here despite the Barnes Wallis over the pond protecting the green. Post-solve research for all those listed by Jack. Unsatisfying.
  6. DNF but I was closer than I thought! Top half straightforward but bottom half brought me to a halt. Did not know NORNS (homework task accepted) and could not resolve STABAT MATER even with all but one checker. Quite a lot of provisional entries (e.g. SCREWED, PETUNIA, LAYER), without full grasp of the wordplay: from where am I expected to know AINU?

    Thanks for the blog, jimbo, with its stern, schoolmasterly (but nonetheless enjoyable) tones of rebuke for those of us who have clearly failed to take enough notice in our crossword lessons. I’m not sure that the obscurities in this puzzle had a ‘leavening’ effect. My OED suggests that leavening should result in an improvement (rather than obfuscation).

  7. Like joekobi, almost four times as slow as yesterday at 30 minutes, mostly trying shots in the dark in the lower right. I managed both IMPARTIAL and ENTANGLES as first attempts, both on wrong definitions, possibly influenced by the stretches needed in other clues – LAYER (“let me see” just didn’t trigger “er” for me) and SCREWED (obviously don’t know all my US state capitals) in particular. Thanks to Jim for enlightenment. The Pierre clue, once understood, put me in mind of a ST clue from long ago which stuck in the memory: Where Briton Ferry is on a map of Wales?
    I didn’t have any trouble, mercifully, with spar=pole – a spar is that stick on a sailing ship usually at right angles to the mast, the yard arm from which mutinous swabs were generally hanged.
    CoD to the pairing of swine related clues 2 and 10: the Wodehouse clue was a thing of beauty.
  8. 40 minutes without aids but one wrong at 16ac where I wrote SPUR reasoning “part with short” = SPUR(n) – a bit dodgy – and SPUR = “strut” = “rod” = “pole” (in both senses) – all supported in Chambers.

    Wrote in a lot of answers without understanding every element of the clue but worked them all out later.

    Didn’t know ROLLER, ECHINACEA, AINU, NORNS or PIERRE SD.

  9. 16ac came down to a toss-up between SPAR and ‘spur’ (as a kind of &lit) – and of course I called wrong. When I finally parsed the clue post-solve, it nudged out DUSTPAN (one of two well-hidden anagrams) for COD.

    The benefit of warming up with the Concise was again in evidence, as classMATE came up this morning. Carelessly putting ‘impartial’ at 1ac stymied me on 3 and 5 dn, which, still proved troublesome even with the correct initial letters. ROLLER was a new bird to me, while the problem with the Chinese clue was that I was loath for some reason to insert the expert, wanting to stick it on at the end and finding nothing fitted.

    49 minutes, with thanks to the setter for a fun challenge.

  10. …as was stumped by unknown GK (eg, that Pierre is even a town, let alone a town in SD), and tricky wordplay (eg, ‘let me see’ = ER). However, I thought several of the clues I did get were clever.

    Hadn’t heard of the hymn, but thought SUP(RAC+MATE)ER was plausible. Now I can see there are too many Es!

    COD to DUSTPAN. Unlike in some recent puzzles, there were several to choose from.

  11. what an addiction this is – i’d give up chocolate too, but i’m no quitter. . . .
  12. 23:21 .. the hymn pieced together from wordplay which, to my mild astonishment, did not prove to be hopelessly misunderstood.

    Major delays caused by putting in IMPARTIAL at 1a and TRAP at 18a.

    Regarding Barnes Wallis, there is a remake of The Dambusters in the pipeline, directed by Peter Jackson (he of elvish things). Expect 3D bombs.

  13. Needed an English workmate to get BARNES. Got LAYER and SCREWED without understanding how they worked (thanks Jimbo). And like Sotira, was shocked that STABAT MATER was a correct guess.
    COD to TRISHAW, although I’d never heard the word before.
  14. A few too many obscurities for my liking or ability…. But a serious question from a newcomer. “Training’s” and “roadworks”…one a plural, the other possessive. Is this accepted as fairplay?
    1. I believe that punctuation is by convention ignored in solutions. So the ROADWORKS in the solution is not a plural. I actually interpreted it as “training has” = “roadwork has” = ROADWORKS.
    2. I have just reread the first half of my comment and it’s complete and utter gibberish.
      The last bit I think is right. The wordplay is “training” = ROADWORK, “‘s” (short for “is” or “has” = S. The definition is “a possible cause of congestion”.
  15. Just over 20 minutes for me. This was surprising because I found it difficult for all the reasons mentioned above.
    Many thanks for the blog, Jimbo. I needed it to parse wordplay for HOGARTH, LAYER and SCREWED and I have never heard of TRISHAW, AINU, SISAL (although that one did 13ac) or ROLLER. At least I knew NORNS, which have appeared here fairly recently I think, and the hymn. As I take the train from BARNES station every morning 21dn was a gimme. It’s not a patch on Dorset but still “nondescript” is a trifle harsh if I may say!
    Lovely to see my favourite Earl and his favourite sow make an appearance.
  16. About 45 minutes, but I had to go to aids for Mr. Wallis, and like vinyl the only Wallis I considered was the former Mrs. Simpson. I actually knew the hymn from somewhere long ago, and I had the US-based advantage of knowing where Pierre is. I was surprised to see it, though, since it’s pretty obscure over here too. I found this tricky overall, and enjoyable, especially the pigs, TRISHAW and SCREWED. Didn’t know ‘roller’, or the NORNS. Regards to all.
  17. I forgot to check my time after 36 minutes before dinner, but after breakfast managed to finish it; well over an hour, I’m sure. I remember NORNS from that wonderful anthology of bad poetry, ‘The Stuffed Owl’–some horrible imitator of Poe writing of ‘reboantic Norns’. I actually had the S and D of 20d early, and much later recalled Crewe from an earlier cryptic. Pierre, by the way, is pronounced PEE-er; and now you know all there is to know about the place. Dvorak, by the other way, wrote a fine ‘Stabat Mater’.
    1. That was Thomas Holly Chivers –

      In the music of the morns
      Blown through Conchimarian horns,
      Down the dark vistas of the reboantic Norns,
      To the Genius of Eternity
      Crying, “Come to me! Come to me!”’

      – simply unforgettable.

  18. Couldn’t finish this last night, and didn’t get back to it until after lunch today. The setter and I were nowhere near each others’ wavelengths – BARNES a complete guess from the checking letters, SCREWED from the definition (now I see it, I like it), PETUNIA also from def and the hymn from wordplay.
  19. …couldn’t get JIN out of my skull …as in GAIJIN…hence a DNF for me with several missing in the SW corner.
    1. JIN as also in JINRICKSHAW (JIN (man) RIKI (power) SHA (car), or as a wit observed, a Pullman car.

      I couldn’t make the leap from RICKSHAW to TRISHAW at 26

      1. I was going to mention this, but the AINU were known for their hairiness and fairness of complexion in comparison to the dominant Japanese; I’ve never heard them spoken of as taller.
  21. Pergolesi wrote a quite sublime Stabat Mater just before dying at the age of 26.
  22. 9:14 for me, so not significantly slower than yesterday (just 23 seconds). A most enjoyable puzzle.
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  24. Almost screwed by LOI 20d. Thanks for parsing this , of all the possible locations for Pierre ( Couldn’t get past St Pierre and Miquelon for a while ) it was in South Dakota! 33 mins, same as the William and Kate one .

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