Times 25008: The flowers that bloom in the spring …

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 31:14.

But I’m pleading the 96th Amendment (“Bloggers will be excused slow times when fully parsing clues before entering answers”). A good (but not great) puzzle I felt with a few traps for time-consumed clue-skimmers (e.g., ON TOW for 7dn, PESOS for 1dn, LAMPLIGHT for 8dn ??). Four good long anagrams were most helpful in getting the little white squares filled. And so … to the details …

Across
 1 PLAY A,ROUND. One for the (male?) golfers.
 6 TILL. Two defs: work (as in cultivate); cash register.
10 S(A,FAR)IS.
11 S(A[N]CT)UM.
12 STA(I)R,CASE.
13 DO,WEL{l}.
14 J(A,C)OB. The insert is {insomni}A and C{ount}. The container is the long-suffering Job. A rare variety of horny sheep.
15 E,NG,RAVING. {Romanc}E.
17 Omitted. It’s not a kind of bowling from 20 years ago. Or is it?
20 HOP IT. OP (work) in HIT (success); not HIT in OP.
21 TRA-LA. TRA{i}L + A.
23 SENESCENT. Anagram: sentences.
25 ERE,MITE.
26 FRAME-UP. Two defs; this time for the snooker players who know that a frame is a single rack/game. Also used in (ten-pin) bowling and baseball, I’m told.
27 TO{p},ME
28 DEPREDATED. Anagram: Dreaded pet.
Down
 1 PO(S)TS. As in pots of money.
 2 AFFIANCED. Anagram: Find a face.
 3 AURORA BOREALIS. Anagram: A rare … laborious.
 4 ON,STAGE. 1. leg (side) for the cricketers; 2. leg (stage of a race, journey, etc.).
 5 Omitted. Appropriately nested.
 7 IN TOW. Take TO WIN (to achieve victory) and transpose the last two letters (IN) to the front.
 8 LIMELIGHT. Cryptic def.
 9 AN IDEAL HUSBAND. Two defs; one a stage play by Oscar — who was Wilde, though Thornton was Wilder.
14 J(AUNT,I)EST.
16 IMPLEMENT. Two defs.
18 A,US(TER{m})E.
19 D(ONE F)OR. Reversal of ROD (bar).
22 A-TEAM. ATE,AM.
24 TE(PI)D. π, 3.14159….

43 comments on “Times 25008: The flowers that bloom in the spring …”

  1. Got into the spirit of the thing by attempting a speed solve and, predictably enough, fell into two of the three traps predicted by McT: ‘on tow’ (which led to ‘toil’) and ‘lamplight’ (where I was scrabbling around for the right word, having identified the Chaplin era). Have to say I thought this was an excellent puzzle of its type, and for its purpose – a real sheep-on-speed separator. (27 minutes.)
  2. Second week running I’ve failed to realize it was a Championship puzzle while solving, and second week I’ve goofed. 15:38 but with LAMPLIGHT.

    I had no idea where the word ‘limelight’ came from, so thanks, mctext, fo rthe above.

  3. Ironically enough, a personal best, 14’30”, even with having put in ‘ascetic’ at 18d without thinking, and trying to get ‘exegete’ to work at 25ac. But then ‘without thinking’ was the key this time; I put in a number of clues (3d, 5d, 19d, 21ac, 24d, 4d, the last 2 of which I didn’t understand until reading mctext’s explanation) on gut feeling plus a couple of checkers, a strategy that doesn’t always work. But didn’t some of these seem rather easy (e.g. 16d, 2d, 28ac)?
  4. I don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘frame’ used in baseball; but then, what I don’t know about baseball would fill a book.
    1. NOAD has:

      • informal an inning in a baseball game: he closed out the game by pitching two hitless frames.

      1. As I said, what I don’t know, etc. But still, I’d bet big bucks (someone else’s) that no one uses the word except sportswriters averse to using the same word more than once.
  5. Tied with mctext on the minutes taken to solve but can’t claim win or lose as I don’t record seconds.

    I thought this was mostly an excellent puzzle of its type with outstanding clues at 4,5 and 24 down. The only one I wondered about was 6ac where I felt a question mark might have been in order as tills are just as often ‘on’, or even sometimes ‘under’, as ‘behind’ the counter.

    I don’t see any room for ambiguity at 8dn as LIMELIGHT is a word specifically and historically associated with theatre.

    DEPREDATED is one of those words the more one thinks about it the less certain one is that it actually exists.

    Clicking my saved link to the Club on the dot of midnight took me to the front page of the newspaper and in the process corrupted the link which I then had to rebuild. Very odd.

      1. A couple of different crossers, and you could always have ‘Spread queer money from widow’, ‘though folks down your way might prefer that tasteless gunge!
  7. Well, I did this in about 8 minutes but it doesn’t count since I first did it on the day, in about 20.. I didn’t actually remember a single clue specifically, but somehow it was still much easier the second time around.. I thought this a very fair effort, not trying to be too clever or difficult.
    The reason it is limelight and not lamplight is that limelight is specifically defined as brilliant or intense, which is why theatres used it of course. Lamplight by contrast has dim, diffuse connotations. Till I would feel happier if the setter had managed to put the choice beyond doubt, perhaps by including the other sense of limelight, ie in the public eye, fame, in the clue as well..
  8. I was left with N TOW at the end and dozily went for TOIL instead of TILL. Ah well, I wasn’t going to trouble the scorers anyway. 36 minutes.

    This feels like another example of our God Squad setter’s handiwork.

  9. Like others I had little trouble with this which is mainly rather easy

    To be strictly correct I think 1A should be “proceed towards the eighteenth hole” but the PLAY AROUND was so obvious that it mattered not

    I’m surprised by 8D – a poor clue in my opinion and certainly in such an august competition. You require some arcane knowledge of what LIMELIGHT was to know it has to be the answer. As Jerry says the setter could easily have remedied the ambiguity

    1. I’m surprised by this, Jimbo. I’d have thought this meaning of limelight was bordering on scientific knowledge as one of the principal applications of an invention.
      1. What I push for above all in these puzzles is an arts/science balance. For every author, painter and poet there should be a chemist, physicist or mathematician.

        I think expecting a knowledge of how an invention works is bordering on the arcane particularly if its an outdated invention. In this case the word has a modern meaning and the old usage is confined to history. Like “copper bottomed” yesterday one should know the modern usage but it would surely hardly have been fair to expect a knowledge of the 18th century navy practices

  10. …and that one was EREMITE, and since I knew neither the hermit nor the widow’s cash, this was hardly guessable. I was also held up for a while by carelessly putting in ‘underling’. I’m glad ‘lamplight’ didn’t come to mind, as I’m sure I’d have fallen into that trap. I don’t think I’ve ever come across DEPRECATED, needed all the checkers for that one. Thanks for explanation of IN TOW. I thought maybe it should have read ‘…last three up front…’, but I see how it works now.
  11. The following is an extract from an email I received telling me that the results of the 2nd prelim had been amended:

    “We regret that there were a small number of errors in the provisional placings of some contestants in the second preliminary session at last Saturday’s championship. You five are the only contestants who were materially affected.

    What happened is that the markers missed three examples of LAMPLIGHT for LIMELIGHT.”

  12. How easy was that? All but dowel in straight off.
    I am usually a little defensive of the setter when religious clues are sighed at, but agree with comment earlier that widows mite is rather esoteric, especially if eremite is also unknown.
  13. About 40 mins, but fell into all the traps in the NE corner, and messed up EREMITE as well, giving me a worst ever 4 wrong.

    I entered ON TOW & LAMPLIGHT with reasonable confidence, and added TOIL without any real understanding. I didn’t know EREMITE, and went with EKEMITE thinking ‘living in severe circumstances’ might be EKE, as in eke out a living.

    This is why I don’t enter the Championship!

  14. Add me to the list of people confused as to whether LAMPLIGHT or LIMELIGHT was expected. I guess it works now, but I didn’t know the origin of LIMELIGHT
  15. Don’t recall having any trouble with LAMPLIGHT / LIMELIGHT on the day. ONSTAGE, however, was my LOI of the whole session, having been left till last as uncertain – I was having extreme nagging doubts about it as one word rather than two, but finally convinced myself by thinking of UPSTAGE as a similar word.
  16. On the principle that what I know must be obvious, I had no trouble with LIMELIGHT (having rejected ‘footlight’ which, as I understand it, was originally a limelight). The reference to ‘music halls’ ruled out any ambiguity in mind. Enjoyed puzzling out IN TOW which then allowed TILL (LOI) to fall into place.

    Thanks for the blog, mctext. I was surprised that only 56% of competitors actually finished this: enjoyable but not exceptionally challenging.

  17. In the year in which we celebrate 400 years of the King James Bible, so definitive of our Western culture, it’s such a pity that even among the best educated and intelligent folk represented here there is ignorance of the New Testament story. The Barbarians are truly past the doors!
  19. A little fed up that recently we have been expected to know so much obscure information about one book/one movement. For heavens sake, in our multicultural society, can we not depend so much on one archaic area of knowledge for inspiration to so many clues.
    1. “One archaic area of knowledge”: but it isn’t just that, is it? Especially in the case of the King James version, like Shakespeare, it’s the source of hundreds, perhaps thousands of phrases in common current use, both as part of a cultural (not always “religious”) heritage and as a key stage in the standardisation of the English language. You’ll find “widows mite” in Chambers easily as a paradigm phrase for a small but generous gift. Try not to sniff at it just because it’s “christist”.
      “Biblical imagery dominates our English” – Richard Dawkins (yes, that one).
          1. As a strong atheist I have no trouble about all the biblical references. Similarly I have no trouble about all the Shakespeare/Hardy/Brontes/Wilde who are a closed book to me; the obscure (ie every single one) poets; the unknown composers and artists; the 1950s slang. It’s what The Times crossword is.

            And after a few years you slowly start to learn it all (eg it took 3 or 4 passes for Lares to stick).

            Cheers,
            Rob

  20. Anon, on behalf of the group, thanks for the compliments. About 35 minutes here, LOI being ONSTAGE from definition only, because cricket clues almost always go over my head. Unfortunately, I also went with LAMPLIGHT. I never thought of LIMELIGHT, which does seem to clearly be what was intended. To cement the anonymous point above, I knew of the widow’s mite, but only vaguely, and I couldn’t have told you it was a Biblical allusion. But, my (and anyone else’s) lack of that arcane shred of knowledge doesn’t foreshadow the fall of civilization by any means. Happy Anniversary to the KJ version, and regards to all.
  21. 17 minutes but with lamplight. However, the origin of ‘in the limelight’ and the story of the widow’s mite are both to my mind perfectly OK GK for a Times solver, though that acronym aint. I think if you play a round you can be said to be on the way to what awaits you at the end.
  22. I put in LAMPLIGHT and didn’t give it a second thought. I see now that it had to be LIMELIGHT.
  23. These days I often go through the self operated checkout at Tesco and shop online, so I almost feel justified in asking “what’s a counter? What’s a till?”, pretending either to be much younger than I am or to be in an advanced stage of memory deletion. Anyway, I got that crossing wrong because, at the time IN TOW just looked and sounded wrong. If only I’d thought of putting “taken” in front.
    I thought this was a bit weird, with a lot of short two word answers, and rather a lot of those clues, like LIMELIGHT (vide supra ad nauseam), where the wrong answer can go in and look right if you’re under time pressure.
    Who was it who said something like always PLAY AROUND with older women because the widows mite? Might well be WC Fields or Groucho, but certainly from an age when everyone would have got the reference. It’s not all that long ago…
  24. Got to this very late. Mostly very easy and completed in 10 minutes, but I hesitated over LIMELIGHT/LAMPLIGHT. LIMELIGHT was my first idea, but I didn’t know where it came from and in the end I went for LAMPLIGHT. Lucky I was in the other prelim!
  25. 9:51 for me – pleased to break 10 minutes (20 time bonus points in old money) for a slightly tricksy puzzle.

    I bunged in LIMELIGHT immediately (even those not familiar with the scientific background – come on, dorsetjimbo 😉 – might at least have come across the phrase “stepping into the limelight”), but then had to read the clue again to check that it really had an alternative reading to justify it as a cryptic definition.

    I can’t see any objection to the golfing element of 1ac, but surely “flirting” is different from “playing around”.

  26. A steady 26 minutes. No problems with any of the GK except that I didn’t see the cryptic of ONSTAGE until a few hours after completion. Cricket is well outside my GK comfort zone. I much prefer the literary and biblical references. (I’d even prefer the scientists!)

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