Times 24919 – Frequently Coupling !

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Thank goodness for a relatively easy puzzle (in my book, one done within half an hour) after last fortnight’s horror. Plenty of good stuff especially certain indirect definitions that never fail to raise a wry smile from me as I solve. Very entertaining start to my day.

ACROSS
1 SECURE Ins of EC (city) in SURE (confident)
4 MEGALITH MEG (rev of GEM, stone) ALIT (came down) H (first letter of henge) for a memorial consisting of a very large stone forming part of a prehistoric structure (especially in western Europe). Quite like the separate use of Stonehenge
10 RECONDITE Ins of SECOND (moment) minus S (saint) in RITE (church ceremony. Recondite means hidden; obscure; abstruse; profound.
11 SEPTA SEPIA (brown) with T (time) substituted for I (symbol for current in physics) septum (pl septa) a partition or dividing structure in a cavity, tissue, etc.
12 BLASPHEMOUS Ins of U (university) in *(hapless mob)
14 NET NEAT (ox) minus A (area)
15 ECONOMY Ins of CO (care of) in *(money) A lovely quasi-&lit
17 ELIXIR Rev of ins of XI (eleven or football team) in RILE (get annoyed)
19 MANIOC Ins of O (last letter of sago) in MANIC (wild) a kind of tuber cultivated for its rich source of starch
21 STAGGER S (son) TAGGER (graffiti artist)  a tag is an identifying mark or sign; a symbol or signature used by a graffiti-writer)
23 Acrostic answer deliberately omitted
24 CONFEDERATE *(Following DECREE NATO)
26 LOTTO BLOTTO (one of many slang words for being very drunk) minus B (British)
27 INTERMENT IN TERM (when schools are open) *(TEN) Very misleading def for a burial
29 SINISTER Ins of IN (home) in SISTER (nurse)
30 LENTIL LENT (period of fast) ILL (unwell) minus L

DOWN
1 SCRUBBER Cha of S (second) C (century) RUBBER (series of games) Well Done to the English cricket team for their sterling performance to date. Whatever is happening to the team touted as the best test side in the world? Are they suffering from the English equivalent of the Bombay Rumble or the Delhi Belly?
2 COCOA CO (company) COAT (Ulster, perhaps) minus T
3 RUN RUNG (step) minus G
5 rha deliberately omitted. Sounds like a home for 23Across
6 ASSASSINATE Cha of AS (like) SAS (Special Air Service, special forces) + ins of IN in SATE (gorge)
7 IMPENDING IMP (devil) ENDING (finish)
8 HEARTH H (first letter of horoscope) + EARTH (planet) Before the advent of the modern central heating, the fireplace used to be the symbol of home
9 FINERY Ins of N (chess symbol for knight; since K has been taken by King who easily outranks any knight) in FIERY (passionate)
13 PROMISCUOUS Cha of PROM (concert) IS + CURIOUS (unusual) minus R & I (first and last letter of Rossini) For that superb def, my COD. Frequently coupling, indeed
16 ORANG-UTAN Ins of RANG (called) in OUT (openly gay) AN (first two letters from Anglicans)
18 ORIENTAL Ins of N (new) TA (Territorial Army or volunteers) in ORIEL (Oxford college)
20 CONFINE CON (convict or prisoner) FINE (quite well)
21 SHEATH S (small) HEATH (scrub)
22 APPLES APPLIES (is relevant) minus I (one)
25 ALERT ALE (beer, the golden 17A of life) R (symbol for runs in cricket) T (last letter of out)
28 RUE Alternate letters of RoUgE

Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram

46 comments on “Times 24919 – Frequently Coupling !”

  1. 33 minutes and a lot to enjoy.

    Apropos of yesterday’s discussion re semi-&lits with pronominal defs, 15ac is a splendid case of one that works. In this case because of its allusion to James Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid” (c1992; the Clinton campaign).

    Thanks to Uncle Yap for finding ALIT in 4ac where I could only find LIT and wondered where the A came from! Great blog as ever. Only 81 puzzles to go to no. 25000. (A Monday puzzle by my dubious reck?)

    Edited at 2011-08-04 01:37 am (UTC)

    1. Ah, that reminds me MC, I must have another peek at the crossword website forum entries for the ST cryptic 4444, and see if spontaneous combustion has taken place yet 🙂
      1. Please report. There must have been a curiosity gene in the water on the Wirral at some point in the 50s!
        1. We are up to 118 entries now.. the pro lobby has been gaining ground recently but there is still a steady stream of “I shall cancel my subscription” type outrage too. Of the latter, about half seem unable to control their printer and most of the rest just resent change in any form.
          I am now a strong supporter of Peter’s innovation and hope it becomes a regular feature, since the resulting thread is as entertaining as the crossword itself, if not more so.
          1. Based on your comments I went and did this crossword. Seems very straightforward to me – can’t see what all the fuss is about but well done Peter.
          2. I’ve been away from this blog for a week and am wondering what this is about. Enlightenment, please?
            1. Last Sunday’s cryptic was a little different in that it contained a modest theme, and some members of The Times crossword club were unable to cope with such a drastic change. This is a current prize puzzle so I will say no more.. join the club, or get hold of last Sunday’s ST, or wait for the blog to appear here next Sunday…
              1. Thanks for the info. I’m working through a stack of last weeks papers. Haven’t reached Sunday yet!
  2. After a fast start, I found this 7 across, crossing the line in just over the hour mark, but the wrong line as it happened, having entered ‘impinging’ for IMPENDING and ‘sweety’ in desperation for SHEATH. Looking back rather nostalgically to the days when I could do these without mistakes!

    Liked the governing body in particular. Top clue.

  3. 40 minutes with a couple of unnecessary hold-ups on easy ones. I must revert to solving first thing in the morning instead of as I go to bed.

    I didn’t know MANIOC but it was obvious from the wordplay.

  4. 18:40 but not quite sure about 21D as clue says ‘shrub’; is heath a shrub? Totally get heath=scrub but wonder if there is a misprint in the downloadable version?
    1. US Oxford has, heath:

      a dwarf shrub with small leathery leaves and small pink or purple bell-shaped flowers, characteristic of heathland and moorland. Erica and related genera, family Ericaceae (the heath family): many species, including the common European cross-leaved heath (E. tetralix).

  5. Quite satisfying to finish this correctly in about 40 minutes; nonetheless pleasure lessened by the amount I had to put in, rather mechanically, on a wing and a prayer. Faithfully followed wordplay to get SEPTA (unknown), MANIOC (unknown) and INTERMENT (agree this is a very misleading definition); followed rule of ‘it can’t be anything else’ to get STAGGER (term for graffiti artist unknown), COCOA (ulster as coat unknown) and SHEATH (heath as shrub unknown). Thanks, yfyap, for the blog, in particular the full, and correct, parsing of ASSASSINATE.
    1. The trick is to remember such words the next time 😉 – Ulster = coat for example is quite a regular.
  6. I thought this an elegant puzzle, with some fine surface readings, which I always appreciate. cod to 27ac which brilliantly managed to hide the definition entirely through a choice of which word in the phrase carries the emphasis…
  7. Very enjoyable puzzle in which the clues flowed well in contrast to some of yesterday’s strained efforts.

    I doubt anybody actually uses SCRUBBER to mean “one cleaning up”, the slang usage being too powerful. And LOTTO is surely now universally known as Bingo. Solved MANIOC and STAGGER from wordplay.

    Loved “frequently coupling” and “procedure governing body”. Those little gems plus the clue to ECONOMY are what this puzzle is all about.

      1. Thanks for that – a misuse of the word LOTTO surely?

        Do people really participate in that nonsense at those odds against winning?

  8. Surely the word means ‘indicriminate coupling’ rather than ‘frequent coupling’ in this sense? (OED, ODE and Chambers)

    There’s a lot of difference!

    Paul S.

    1. Sorry, that should have been ‘indiscriminately coupling’ and ‘frequently coupling’.

      Paul S.

      1. NOAD seems to favour frequency:
        “derogatory, (of a person) having many sexual relationships, esp. transient ones”.

        I know those — don’t ask! — who engage in “frequent coupling” but are extremely discriminating about the many partners they choose. The obvious conservatism of the clue is that it confines promiscuity to couples!

        Edited at 2011-08-04 08:37 am (UTC)

  9. A really enjoyable puzzle although I made hard work of some very simple ones – it took me a long time to spot 5 down! I got Interment quite quickly but the penny didn’t drop as to why that was the answer until some time later.
    Louise
  10. )
    All present and correct in about 30 mins or so, must be something of a record for me! I too guessed at SEPTA, having only come across the singular, and didn’t know the Ulster connection. Didn’t bother to work out why it was PROMISCUOUS, so thanks for working that one out.

    Btw, MANIOC is often used by coeliacs or others who cannot tolerate gluten in wheat. I believe it is the same as cassava.

  11. 20 minutes here. Pretty straightforward but elegant with some very nice touches as noted by others: “frequently coupling”, “procedure governing body” and also “period with fast pulse”.
    I didn’t know MANIOC but the wordplay was very clear. Likewise SEPTA, even though I knew the word in the singular. It’s been in the news recently because two famous SEPTA have been treated surgically of late: one deviated (Ed Milliband) and one collapsed (Tara Palmer-Tomkinson).
    I thought whilst solving that Ulster must be a type of coal, although as jerrwh says the coat appears quite regularly. The right answer by the wrong route will do me.
  12. Rather threw my wicket away with a too-quick glance towards 11a and a resultant failure to note the direction of travel. Chalk one up to the SEPIA trap.

    I too was rather taken aback by the definition of PROMISCUOUS, which seems to imply that one could be promiscuous with one’s other half. Which won’t do at all.

      1. Jimbo, I’m shocked. What on earth goes on in Dorset? On second thoughts – no, don’t tell me.
  13. All done in 20 minutes apart from 5, 7 and 11, and unfortunately they took as long again to work out. A devil to finish indeed. A nice puzzle though. In addition to the clues already mentioned, I think LENTIL deserves a small round of applause for the ‘period with fast pulse’ trickery.
  14. All correct in 31 minutes, although several words unknown, so an excellent puzzle for mine.
    Agree with richnorth, thought the clue for LENTIL was superb.
    Certainly a lot more LOTTO players than BINGO players where I come from.
  15. 22 minutes, a majority puzzling over interment (what abrilliant mis-definition!) and my nemesis, the unknown and unknowable shrub. Inevitably, having seen the definition as “shrub”, on the basis that it’s always the one you don’t want it to be, I was looking for a cover with an S or a WEE in it – sympathy to ulaca!) I put sheath in when I kicked myself out of my anti-reverie, but still didn’t know heath as an individual shrub. Not knowing a shrub, however, is no real handicap, since I’m more than ever convinced that almost any readable combination of letters could be a shrub somewhere.
    CoD: I’m another quickened pulse.
  16. Got through in about 15 minutes, so I found this one of the more welcoming offerings this week. Got INTERMENT through wordplay, and only realized the definition was merely ‘procedure governing body’ after completion, which I found very nifty, ditto to the LENTIL and ECONOMY. My last entry was SEPTA, by following the wordplay, and the fact that I once acquired a deviated septum from a youthful (and beer fueled) nighttime soccer game. It leads to a minor quibble, in that we humans (and other mammals, I think) can have only a singular septum when it functions to ‘divide the airways’, so the plural form, coupled with the definition, seems out of place. Minor quibble on a good puzzle though, probably due to it being my last entry, and thus causing me to think too much. I tried to make this or a similar post last night from my handheld, and thought I had, but apparently I still haven’t mastered that uncooperative device. Thanks to the setter, and Uncle Yap, and regards.
  17. I thought this was a terrific puzzle with some brilliantly misleading definitions. Great stuff. I wasted time on “siena” for brown and had a unknown biological term “stena” which made IMPENDING impossible to see. It took ages for the penny to drop. Relieved to finish in 33 minutes.
    1. As usual I wasted time on SIENA too. But then I remembered that a) it’s (perversely!?) almost always spelled SIENNA when it’s a colour rather than a city; and b) there is a genuine 5-letter answer if only I can think of it (which luckily didn’t take me too long today, helped by having the initial S in place).
  18. I had this almost done in 22 minutes, but couldn’t for the life of me make anything of 21d and 27ac, to my (retrospective) shock. Wasted at least 20 more minutes just on them, and another 10 kicking myself. Hadn’t occurred to me at the time, but 13d does seem to have a dim view of the private lives of couples. Still, I’d give it COD. Is there any reason for ‘just’ in 22d?
  19. Solved in stages between trips out and various visits. All but 4 clues unaided- needed Bradford to prompt me about ‘Sepia’, then finished by guessing STAGGER.

    I liked the INTERMENT, PROMISCUOUS and ORANG-UTAN clues.

    Regards

    Andrew Kitching

  20. Lovely puzzle. Probably on the easy side for the experts. Needed the blog for the explanation to PROMISCUOUS, otherwise only SHEATH looks dubious. Heathland is scrub, heath is surely not a shrub, although looking at our garden here in Touraine perhaps it is.
    Mike and Fay
  21. Thank goodness for some cooler weather today. I had a refreshing walk in the rain this morning and feel a lot better. So …

    6:06 in a clean sweep (my first since February). Relieved to find I haven’t lost it completely.

  22. From a Yank– Haven’t done the (London) Times puzzle since it stopped being published in New York Magazine decades ago. Didn’t realize it was now being published in The New York Post. (I’m a New York Times subscriber and puzzle-doer, though our puzzle is not a cryptic and, even at its toughest, is much easier than yours!) Anyway, I found a page of the Post torn out and on the street, the cryptic still untouched. So I took it home and struggled. Got the whole right side, top to bottom, without always understanding the clueing at all. For instance, got ASSASSINATE and CONFEDERATE without getting how they ad been clued. On the left side, got only SECURE (EC means city in England???????), BLASPHEMOUS and CONFINE (the only straightforward clue in the puzzle!) I imagine this puzzle is pretty challenging even when you’re a Brit; for an American, it’s well-nigh impossible. –Nancy in NYC

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