Times 25015 – Concealing A Naked Daughter

43 comments on “Times 25015 – Concealing A Naked Daughter”

1. Agreed, a very well-constructed puzzle with lots of pencilled parsing notes … added after the fact. Scratched my head over the “as online article” insert in 15ac which seemed gratuitous since “made fast” gives PEGGED (as in prices) as it stands. Thanks to Uncle Yap for putting me out of my misery.

   One slight query is the part-of-speech for the def in 18dn: “such a meaty bone”. A muttony is not a bone! (Shades of the Weekend Australian “Sunday Times” puzzle.)

   Also: I parsed 19ac as:
   L (student in driving seat); UP IN (knowing a lot about).
   Could that be right? L=student seems to be a no-no in the Times.

   1. L=student is not good form but L=student in driving seat is surely OK
      1. My point exactly.
2. I knew it was the fourth Thursday of November today, so I wrote in 21ac from the definition and then worked out the wordplay.

   26ac was my last one in. I had all of the checking letters from pretty early on, even though I wasn’t happy with the definition for 18dn. In the end I resorted to entering each letter in the first unchecked square, until I got to T which made me think that the answer could end in OLOGY.

   I agree with mctext about the parsing of 19ac.

3. ….devoured by this dog in about 50 minutes.

   I agree about lupin = L + ‘up in’. That was a bit of a problem area for me; I had ‘stockstill’ and ‘lilac’ for a while, making things difficult for myself. Imperfect recollection of Middle English caused this error – ‘oc’ or ‘ock’ means ‘but’, not ‘and’. Then I saw ‘pungent’, and corrected the whole quadrant in a flash.

   I have only one quibble, that a ‘maestro’ is usually a conductor and not an instrumentalist. This prevented me from entering it for a bit, until I saw how the cryptic worked.

   I agree, ‘Egyptology’ is the COD, a very crafty clue. But my last in were ‘damp squib’ and ‘muttony’.

4. Similar reservations as others re MAESTRO (absolutely anyone who picks up a baton in Hong Kong!), where ‘virtuoso’ seems to fit the clue better, and MUTTONY. The setter seems to have realised the grey area by adding an exlamation mark and dressing the clue up as a sort of @lit.

   79 minutes for me, with my last in ‘argus’ wrong. All the more galling when AEGIS came up in this morning’s Concise defined as protection. Some warm-up that proved! Thanks to setter and blogger.

5. cheap ugg boots ,australia uggs boots,australian ugg boots, australia
6. My 21:30 messed up by an excess of caution. As I typed THE AYES HAVE IT I distinctly remember thinking “Whatever you do, don’t type THE EYES HAVE IT”. Which is just what I did. Brains, huh. Who needs ’em? [think mine might be in need of a firmware update]

   Lovely puzzle, though.

   Last in .. the ingenious EGYPTOLOGY.

7. I found most of this was very easy, with generous definitions, some was tricky, and finally MUTTONY was impossible. I got the answer but did not put it in as I simply could not reconcile the answer with the definition.
8. An excellent, lively and entertaining puzzle which I found not too difficult and completed all correctly in 40 minutes.

   “Little sign one’s expecting” deserves a mention as an amusing definition of BUMP so I’ll give it one here.

   I agree with the comments already made on the correct parsing of 19ac. ‘Up’ might refer to seats and saddles on horses but not to driving and I don’t see how ‘in’ can mean ‘knowing a lot’ although ‘into’ might.

   Uncly Y, you have a couple of typos, ‘gold’ for ‘golf’ at 9ac and ‘foret’ for ‘forte’ at 3ac.

   1. … and ‘Dicken’s’ for ‘Dickens’s’ (12ac). I’ve never been to one though. Prefer muffins.
   2. Forgot to say, for those who may not know, that in the story the Wizard of Oz appears in different forms, as a giant head, a fairy, a ball of fire and a monster.

      MAESTRO might easily be applied to someone who plays music as a soloist or in chamber group (also to a composer and these days more generally to an expert in almost any field). The definition is in all the dictionaries so there should be no come-back on the setter.

      At 18ac I’m happy that ‘such a meaty’ refers to a quality of the bone that may well be MUTTONY and the question mark serves to satisfy any quibbles that might otherwise arise.

      1. Jack, I’m still not convinced. The “such a meaty” element may just work. “Meaty” would be better. But the part-of-speech for the whole def in the clue is a noun and, in the answer, is an adjective. It shall not pass.

         “a bone that is such” might?

         Edited at 2011-11-24 06:05 am (UTC)

         1. Fair enough. I’d certainly agree that it’s a bit of an odd one considering the highest standards of cluing demonstrated elsewhere in this puzzle.
9. ….DNF in fact; beaten by the Wizard, Zany (I was working on an S-bend) and by Aegis. Like ulaca, I completely forgot about the mention of the word in today’s Concise. Also severely tested by 26ac and by 6d. “What certain soldiers get” is just excellent! Thanks to Mr Yap for the explanation of “blood feud” and “maestro”. To paraphrase Paul Keating I guess Thanksgivings was the answer we had to have today but thanks again for the parsing.
10. Intricate and clever cluing, perhaps too much so in that the answers often came before the rationale, left hanging as a minor puzzle on its own. 35 minutes. I have no problem with ‘muttony’ – ‘such’ is needed though. Just one of those little twirls to a surface reading. (A quick check for the pangram revealed no j, x…or c, oddly.)
11. … sorry, but I think it is. With all the usual apologies and admiration.

    McT

    1. Seconded (or is it thirded?). I might just, and at a push, concede Uncle Y’s explanation of UP, but not IN.
       1. Please ask Matthew, he’s with the in crowd (the crowd that is in the know)

          Where’s Matthew? He’s riding shotgun in the driver’s seat.
          Where’s Matthew? He’s up there riding shotgun
          Per Chambers “ride shotgun to protect a vehicle and its occupants from attack by riding on it (or following close behind it) carrying a firearm or firearms (also ); to be positioned alongside the driver of a vehicle.”
          Nuff said

          This reminds me of a mistake I did when I first started compiling. I had U??I? and I clued “Prepare for take-off (5)” I had in mind UNZIP but when the answers came in, I was humble enough to accept UNPIN, UNTIE and UNFIX.

          I hope others here will be humble enough to accept that Uncle Yap is not wrong vis-a-vis LUPIN.

          1. Sorry, Uncle Y, but with deepest respect I think you’re digging a bit too deep on this one and I don’t buy the examples. For instance ‘in’ in ‘in crowd’ is to do with being fashionable not with ‘knowing a lot’.
    2. Clearly. To try to argue that “in” is equivalent to “knowing a lot” is silly.
12. Tough, but satisfying, going, sharing the same difficulties as my fellow Martin with the NE (fortunately I’d given myself the options of S, U and Z for dangerous bend in 8dn and, plodding through, WIZARD OF OZ was the only sensible option – but thanks yfyap for the full parsing of this and a good blog overall). Happily oblivious to the apparent subtleties of meaning of MAESTRO (my OED Online seems to agree with me, defining ‘maestro’ as ‘a distinguished conductor or performer of classical music’). I’m with mctext on parsing of LUPIN.

    Thanks, setter, for a stimulating challenge. COD to the elegant ISRAELI but others ran it close.

13. Another excellent and enjoyable puzzle, with much devious wordplay. I particularly liked EGYPTOLOGY and ISRAELI. PROVERB was also neatly done. I agree with Mctext and others on the parsing of 19ac (LUPIN). Uncle Yap’s alternative reading can’t really be made to work in my view. “Up” can mean “in the saddle”, of course, but to be “in the driving seat” means to be at the controls of a motor of some kind. The only defence I can think of for Uncle Y’s version is that both phrases can be used figuratively to mean “in control”, but that still leaves the problem of IN=”knowing a lot”, which it doesn’t. I can’t imagine that’s what the setter intended. (Nonetheless, first-class blog as always, Uncle Y!). MUTTONY was my last in, but I’m with Ulaca and Jack in finding no great problems with this clue, the ? at the end giving fair warning that we need to look for a somewhat quirky reading. Between 45 and 50 mins for me.
14. Thanksgiving greetings from across the pond, and deep thanks to all the bloggers and contributors here. You get me sorted out almost every day except weekends. Speaking of which I’m curious to see who gets the assignment to blog last Saturday’s offering (which took me an hour and a half solid). Your performance will be sure of a good house!

    28 minutes on today’s excellent puzzle. I very much liked 1a. As it happens 3a is shown on television here every Thanksgiving.

15. An excellent puzzle, well worth the struggle (for me) to complete. Nothing entered for some time until 25, then a few more easy ones got me going at a slow pace. 45 minutes. Though it felt harder than yesterday’s, my times were similar.

    My parsing of 19 is the same as mctext’s and I don’t see the alternative offered as valid.

    The only weakness was in 18 with its unsound definition, as others have commented. Most of the other clues were crackers – smooth surfaces where it was often hard to spot the joins in the cryptic constructions.

16. A very enjoyable 12 minutes mainly held up by muttony and the ology at 26a. I too think mctext is right about the lupin.
17. A tough puzzle for me but no gripes. Expertly crafted and precise
    cluing apart, perhaps, from 18D as others have mentioned.

    In 20D pungent as a synonym for mordacious was new to me.

    My thanks to the setter.

18. After the coincidences earlier in the week it’s a shame I didn’t read further into my latest library book yesterday as on resuming it this morning I found a whole page devoted to two characters discussing the origin of the quotation describing PETRA as the ‘rose red city’. For what it’s worth BENISON appeared too (different author this time).
    1. Had a similar coincidence with advowson the other day. Someone on Forum mentioned that the word comes up in a Larkin poem. Larkin was Barbara Pym’s great champion and that prompted me to re-read her Jane and Prudence in which a poem by Crowley is quoted “What doth my she-advowson fly Incumbency?” Absolutely no idea what that means!
19. 27:06, not much to add to what has already been said except to entend my thanks to the setter for a hugely entertaining puzzle full of smiles and inventiveness.

    COD to Egyptology of course

20. Just over 50 mins, but pleased to finish without mistakes or aids. Well, I did look up mendicant, but I’ll allow myself that.
21. 9:57, ending in the NW corner with OPEN-TOP (9ac).  No unknowns for once, which was nice.

    “be missed” seems a bit off for GO BEGGING (16dn).  At first glance, though, I don’t think the criticisms of 18dn (MUTTONY) are quite on target, but I don’t really have time to work out why – one to come back to, methinks.

    1. ‘Unwanted or unused’ is in Collins and the Oxfords. I think this could be the same as missed in the sense of missed out or left behind.
       1. I was thinking, too, of opportunities, as for instance in sports:

          Dear me, yet another chance goes begging in the slips!

22. …as I had three left in the bottom left after coming back to it three times! Needless to say MUTTONY was one of them (I had got as far as MUTTON, but I, too was looking for a noun, some sort of bone). The other two were EGYPTOLOGY (great clue, now I understand it, thanks Uncle Y), and APSE, which is really annoying, as I had considered the ends to the words (GSYN!!!), but not the starts!

    Yes, I’m with McText et al re parsing of LUPIN.

    Hadn’t heard of DOTHEBOYS HALL, but got there, and needed the blog to see the reasons for WIZARD OF OZ and BLOOD FEUDS.

23. Made heavy weather of this after another muddy round and took 35 minutes. As others have said, some excellent clues with first rate surface readings.

    Don’t see how LUPIN can be anything but L=student in driving seat + UP IN=knowing a lot. Only one duffer in MUTTONY. Thank you setter. Well done UY – not an easy one to blog

24. Excellent crossword, completed online in 22.15, but with interruptions (that’s my excuse). I got so used to getting answers intuitively and then justifying the cryptic that a couple went by without query. One of them was LUPIN where the hazy up=on a horse, L=learner/student and in=?? was enough – by that time, it couldn’t be anything else. Whackford Squeers’ establishment was another, FIDELIO a third – indeed entries all over the grid. LUPIN was the one I didn’t go back to to work out (still within time, by the way) so I’m making no comment on the discussions above.
    MUTTONY I though was perfectly OK – the “such” allowing the adjective (“a bone of such a type”) if rather economically phrased.
    EGYPTOLOGY was last in, and was one of those clues you know is going to be brilliant even though you can’t make head nor tail of it. A witty and clever CoD.
    As a (currently rather happy) Spurs supporter, I’m quite used to seeing gilt-edged chances GO BEGGING every week. They’re very definitely missed.
25. A very satisfying puzzle – although it took me 50 minutes to complete. A silly slip of pen on my part made this more difficult than it needed to be. (DAMP SQUID anyone?)
26. Really enjoyable puzzle. However I parsed 4 Down as IMP (minor) holding PROM (dance) and TUm but I guess they both get there.

    – Roger

    1. meant TU, not TUm (sorry!)
    2. Looking back, that’s what I saw too – and I think PROM is a better dance than ROMP, which has to go via a thesaurus to get there; eg in Chambers romp-frolic-dance
27. 9:05 here for an interesting and enjoyable puzzle. Like others I had “knowing a lot” = UP IN and “dance” = PROM.

    No objection to 18dn (MUTTONY): the “such a” makes an adjective entirely acceptable.

28. However I accept Mr Yaps idea of Imp (holding ROMP) then TU

    -Roger

Comments are closed.