Times 24916 – Classics on the agenda

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 30 minutes

A quick romp around the north followed by a not so quick trudge around the south as the wind left my sails. Finally held up by yet another troublesome 4-letter clue ending in O; and no, I don’t want a list of all four letter words ending in O – I made one myself on Saturday night instead of sleeping.

Across
1 MICROFICHE = OF + I for current + C.H. for Companion of Honour, inside CRIME*.
6 Deliberately omitted. Not the Charlton Heston but a Charlton Heston.
9 RAMSHACKLE = RAM + SHACKLE; the “tied to” being linkage material.
10 SNUG = GUNS reversed
12 ARISTOTELIAN = ARISTO + tomE inside LATIN*. Hold that Latin translation thought in mind.
15 CAN’T ONE + South + East = CANTONESE
17 ALTER sounds like ALTAR in certain parts of the Home Counties.
18 ORIEL = ORAL with the A replace by I.E.
19 PENNY has ROW reversed + This = PENNYWORT, being “a name given to several completely different plants” (Wiki), which can variously bring you out in a rash or cure one.
20 PORT + LAND BILL = PORTLAND BILL. A natural feature on the Isle of Portland, Dorset (as opposed to the nearby Pulpit Rock) and an version of Barnacle Bill for children.
24 IOTA = Old Testament in Iowa. Another clue in Classics vein.
25 SILLY BILLY
26 ERNE sounds like EARN
27 MELANCHOLY = M.C. HOLY around ELAN

Down
1 Deliberately omitted. Currently not currency in Germany.
2 COMB = COB around Mews
3 OTHER-WORLDLY = (ROT LOWRY HELD)*. Presumably that’s this Lowry.
4 INCAS = Sex Appeal inverted underneath IN + Clubs
5 ALLOW E inside HEN = HALLOWEEN
7 CONVICTION, a double definition
8 DEGENERATE = femalE in (GREAT NEED)*
11 DECASYLLABIC, an acctwab, i.e. a clue constructed to win a bet, in this case that the word antidisestablishmentarians couldn’t be used in a clue. Anagrams anyone?
13 ACCOMPLICE = A.C. for current this time + COMPLICatE, the missing part being AdverT. Why did I have trouble with this one?
14 ANTIPROTON = (NOT AT RIPON)*
16 EX for old + PANS for vessels + I’VE for “the writer has” = EXPANSIVE
21 S for small inside BALA = BALSA. Bala Lake, I learnt very recently, was the largest natural body of water in Wales until it got bigger. The River Dee flows into and out of it at one point and just into it at another.
22 ALSO = A + the London Symphony Orchestra. Item is Latin for also (see hint at 12ac).
23 liveLY LYrics. Lyly did indeed write, and some lively lyrics were amongst his oeuvre.

30 comments on “Times 24916 – Classics on the agenda”

  1. Time taken: one minute longer than Koro. And equally fazed at first by ACCOMPLICE. I guess Lowry, given the tenor of the clue, has to be L.S. It couldn’t be Malcolm because he was rather fond of the other-worldly, especially after a mescal or two and tripping down the odd barranca.

    Medium difficulty while solving; seems lighter than that after having just cracked the Club Monthly.

    Edited at 2011-08-01 10:35 am (UTC)

  2. 45 minutes for the rest and then a further 30 on 11, 27 and 22 – 11 and 22 get my joint CODS. I was always suspicious that my ‘microfishe’ was wrong, as ‘current companion’ for fish was already, well, fishy, and the ‘O’ couldn;t be explained. Back in the day, when I actually used these things, I always stuck with the easier ‘microfilm’ when requesting them, and, though I heard the word used, I don’t think I ever saw it written down. Ah, well, it’s so releasing to be able to own up to one’s faux pas in such a supportive environment!

    Bala Lake featured in Powell and Pressburger’s Small Back Room. For those that are interested in their oeuvre, as chance would have it, I’ll be posting an “Archers Top Five” later today on my eponymous blog.

  3. 30 minutes for all but 11, 19, 22 and 27.

    My problem at 11 was that I had misspelt ARISTOTELIAN as ARISTOTLEIAN and guessed that the apostrophe S in 19 meant that the 5th letter of that answer had to be S, so I had two wrong checkers in mind. Having sorted that out I could only think MEGASYLLABIC which was obviously wrong so I reluctantly resorted to aids.

    Item = also had not stuck in my brain despite having studied Latin at school for 5 years, but that was nearly 50 years ago.

    Never heard of LYLY.

    1. Lyly is probably best known for giving us the word ‘euphuistic’ (to describe an overly flowery writing style), after his best known book Euphues. Would have trouble getting those words in a puzzle, I reckon!
  4. 24:20 with Lyly as an obvious guess, didn’t know Lake Bala, and still unclear about 1D (make a mark? hit the mark?) Liked 11D and 22D particularly.
    1. I just took it as making a mark on the world. I guess you can hit the big time without making much of a mark, particularly these days.
  5. Rather ground this out after a painfully slow start (despite liberal gimmes). Tried to cheat but it helped not one iota. Didn’t know the lake, why ALSO was an old item or, would you believe, why ie replaced the a in ORAL. PENNYWORT, ANTIPROTON and LYLY from wordplay; DECASYLLABIC only after a count.
    Always reluctant to praise a blog as it implies criticism of others but I must say how much I enjoy Koro’s delightful Monday outings.
  6. Read it as ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’, which is twelve syllables, so I discounted DECASYLLABIC and went with MEGASYLLABIC. It’s amazing how logical that seemed at the time, compared to how dopey it looks now that I try to explain it.
    Would have been all correct under forty minutes otherwise, which is not bad for me.
  7. 22 minutes of mostly backwards solving, more or less the opposite to Koro. And two mistakes – a careless EXTENSIVE (I was thinking “tins” and didn’t notice I’d written “tens”). Whimsically, this led to TANSYWORT, which I thought I’d invented but really exists and even has its own caterpillar! Tansy is as good a woman as one might know.
    Otherwise, I thought there were some poor clues in this one, MARK and S-B in particular. “Hitting the mark” is barely the same as “hitting the big time”.
    Cod (once I saw it quite late) to ACCOMPLICE.
  8. I got caught out with the spelling of ARISTOTELIAN, which led to PLUA… (was just eager to finish by this point!). I had thought of correcting 12ac, but then I would have put in MEGA…, so still wrong. If only I’d counted the damn syllables! Unknowns today: LYLY, ERNE, Lake BALA, and that item=ALSO, but all gettable. Ooh, and also PENNYWORT… I had pollywort, until the celebration became clear.

  9. Hitting the mark may not mean hitting the big time, but I think “making one’s mark” might. John
  10. Came here specifically to find out why 1dn is ‘mark’ only to find it deliberately omitted. Very poor clue I thought, if other posts are right. Otherwise an easy but pleasing puzzle, finished well within the half hour.

    How do you get to put your name on these posts? I’ve tried a number of times, but always get some sort of error message. So I remain anonymous.

    1. If you hit the big time you make your mark. And a mark is a brand, as in “makers mark.”
      And if you want to not remain anonymous, you could always append your name, could you not?
    2. Otherwise you have to register with LJ. This should be straightforward but the system may be playing up after recent problems with DDOS attacks and extra defences set up by LJ. Some perserverance may be needed.
  11. A late night 24 minutes undone by an unthinking ALTO. To be honest, I’m not sure I’d have got that one even if I’d been wide awake and had given it more time. I wasn’t on the right track at all.

    Koro: I’ll take the antidisestablishmentarians anagram challenge and offer…

    Absinth trade instils amnesia.

    (I think that works)

    COD to DECASYLLABIC just for getting that word in there.

    1. An anagram worthy of Degas on his deathbed. I’ll have to take your word for it that all the letters are there; one of my anagram engine’s only accepting 21 letters at the moment and the other thinks the only anagram of absinth trade instils amnesia is absinth trade instils amnesia, but then it always says that, irrespective of the fodder. Unfortunately it doesn’t win the prize of an all expenses paid night at the Portland Bill caravan park because it isn’t an &lit. Sorry if I didn’t make the rules more clear.
      1. I would appeal to the Rules Committee, or at least request consideration for the second prize. However, I’m guessing that second prize is two nights at the Portland Bill caravan park, so I’ll pass. Thank you, anyway.
  12. Mostly fairly easy, though I was late to realize that the answer to 12 was adjectival. After 25 minutes I still had 22 unsolved, and after thinking of all possibilities for _ L _ O and making no connection I left it unfinished.
    I thought 25 across was a weak clue, being so obvious.
  13. Good blog, many thanks.
    I thought “Item” = “also once” is weak.ie Once is not much of a direction towards Latin in my book Why not Ancient Greek, or Aramaic or any largely disused language…and is Latin so dead he asked, being raised of the RC persuasion and with a son currently learning it at school(albeit with much complaint)?

    Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

    1. “Once” is surely pointing to archaic use in English, not to Latin. My dim memories of this being somewhere in school Shakespeare are probably from Twelfth Night, Act 1 Scene 5:

      Olivia: O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out divers schedules of my beauty: it shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labelled to my will: as, item, two lips, indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?

  14. Easy puzzle, 15 minutes after a roasting on the golf course.

    ALSO has cropped up in these puzzles before. I’m not keen on it as a device but recognise it when I have to. Also thought the antidis…. clue a bit daft.

    Yet another Dorset landmark I see after Tollpuddle the other day. All makes me feel very much at home and pleased to see ANTIPROTON included.

  15. I got through in 30 minutes, but alas, like galspray, I counted to 12 on 11D and went with MEGA-…, and I didn’t know ALSO as Latin for ‘item’, so I was lost there, and threw in OLEO, for no good reason. I’m not too crazy about SILLY-BILLY, but I think the quibbles regarding MARK are, well, off the mark. ‘Make your mark’ is pretty well known, and it’s close enough to ‘hit the big time’ to pass muster, I think. All that from someone with 2 wrong answers? I’ll hold my voice now. Regards to all.
    1. Ouch! At least my wrong answers were almost defensible, if a bit wide of the mark.
      Curiously, out on a walk with my grandson this very afternoon, I came across someone carrying a large bunch of St James Wort (that’s TANSY to us in the know), just like in the picture. That really hit the mark for me as a consolation, big time.
  16. 11:00 for me – I thought I’d been faster, but I seem to be going through a bad patch at the moment.

    Without any checked letters to go on, I bunged in POLYSYLLABIC for 11dn, but fortunately it didn’t take too long to correct.

  17. 20 minutes in Pearson International Airport waiting for my flight. I’ve got half of last week’s still to do on the plane. Don’t worry I won’t report on the experience.
    I was slowed down by putting NAME for 1dn and EXTENSIVE, but otherwise found this reasonably steady. I was very worried for a couple of minutes by ALSO, my last in, but fortunately inspiration struck. On another day it could easily have done for me.

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