Times 25028

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 24:28, but with one mistake.

I submitted with SWOT for 16a, without really understanding it. Once I saw I had one wrong, I knew it had to be this one as it was the only one I hadn’t understood. I’d worked out my mistake within thirty seconds or so – if only I’d done this before submitting…

Actually, there was another I didn’t fully understand at the time, which was 24d, but I was more confident that that couldn’t realistically be anything else.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 TOM THUMB = I assume this is THUMp in TOMB, although ‘thump’ for ‘attack’ seems a little vague to me. I put it straight in from the definition alone.
6 PERU’S + E
9 DISC + RED + I + TABLE
10 BONE UP = ONE in PUB rev
11 IRON DUKE = (KIND + EURO)* – The Duke of Wellington was British Prime Minister from 1828-1830. His nickname derives from his unwillingness to bow to reform, and his resultant unpopularity. He was eventually ousted by a vote of no confidence and succeeded by a cup of tea.
13 BELL RINGER = L/L + RING in BEER
15 WORD – dd, the second of which is cryptic
16 TWIT = The + WIT – rather a neat &lit. Shame I missed it completely until post-solve.
18 CONS + IS + TENT
21 HARDy + SHIP – Sir Thomas Hardy was Admiral Lord Nelson’s flag captain. He is most famous for being the recipient of Nelson’s line ‘Kiss me, Hardy’ as the Admiral lay dying
22 Cream + RE + TAN
23 POSTOPERATIVE = (APPROVE SITE TO)*
25 A + DON + IS
26 SO + Lab + VENTS – a bit of an overly wordy clue. ‘needs openings for their escape’ seems a lot of text just for ‘VENTS’
Down
2 OLD ROSE = (DOLORES)*
3 TESSELLATED = “TESS ELATED” – neatly disguised definition
4 UN + R.I.P. – I’ve not come across unrip before, but it means ‘to rip’. What a waste of a perfectly good prefix. English is just plain weird sometimes.
5 BED + DINGo
6 POTPOURRI = (OUR PORT)* in PI
7 ROBe
8 SPEAKER = PEAK in SERmon
12 DOWN THE LINE – dd
14 INCA + HOOTS
17 WRAPPED = “RAPT”
19 NIPPERS = SNIPPER with the S moved to the end
20 N(EAR)EST
22 CRAWL = CRAWLEY with YE rev removed
24 SUN – I didn’t understand this at the time, but I’ve just worked it out now as I’ve come to blog it. The Sun newspaper is published every day except Sunday, so it’s a kind of dd.

24 comments on “Times 25028”

  1. Just crept under the half hour mark with the cunning TWIT last in and COD. The confusion caused by Inca as ‘old ruler’ rather than ‘people’ was cleared up post-solve, while BONE UP rang only a faint bell.

    Good to see the town Surrey and Sussex fought over so they wouldn’t get it get a mention – I lived there for seven years, ‘though rarely admit to it. I had a chuckle at 24 dn remembering the immortal line from Porridge: ‘Get us a copy of The Sun … oh, and something to read’.

  2. 30 minutes, so more of a Monday solve for me than a Friday’s but I had to make three corrections after completing the grid before I was satisfied I had cracked all the wordplay which would have added another 5 minutes to my time. I had SWOT for TWIT, WIRE for WORD and TESSERLATED instead of TESSELLATED.

    Using ‘beer’ in the clue to 13ac was really feeble and it wouldn’t have taken much effort to give us something to solve there.

    I’m not sure I appreciated INCA for ruler as opposed to the people in general before this morning.

    I’d also never heard the full name Sir Thomas Hardy but I knew ‘Kiss me, Hardy’ so ‘Admiral’s friend’ didn’t take much working out. Hello, sailor!

    Just lost my whole message in the sending process and had to retype it. Bloody annoying.

  3. … done between various meetings. But about the half-hour I’d have thought. Just about saw the TWIT ruse; but not the SUN double def. (Thanks Dave, I should have seen it.)

    Why is 2dn so funny? Does anyone know a Dolores?

  5. ‘Completed’ in about 30 minutes but now feeling a confounded TWIT: could not resolve wordplay (thanks, Dave) so opted for SWOT instead. Initially thought 19dn might be based on SWEENEY with ‘s’ moved to the end: corrected fairly quickly and a Google search now firmly suggests that my initial answer would never appear in a Times crosswrod!
  6. 11 and a half minutes, mostly a cheap and cheerful solve by numbers jaunt, a light and fluffy dessert to the week’s rather heavy meal.
    OLD ROSE looked like something timely unrip’t (?) from the Dulux chart, WORD was just silly.
    My main hold-up was 23, because, running on instinct, “approve” had me thinking PASS– followed by an anag of the next three. Like others, the expected HIPPIES at 19 kind of compounded the problem, though I suspect the only examples are the ageing kind and don’t qualify as youngsters. Sill need a haircut, though.
    CoD to TOM THUMB, perhaps showing yesterday’s setter how a container clue should be done (though I actually preferred the latter).
    Oh, and no POTPOURRI in my house, for (to echo Python) I am a Protestant.
  7. Even easier than yesterday’s with a sort of Daily Telegraph feel to the style apart from TWIT which is a clever clue (and opposite end of the spectrum to WORD and SUN which are a bit daft)

    Anybody who has landed at Gatwick has seen Crawley even if they didn’t realise it. If you don’t know of Hardy pay a visit to Portsmouth sometime and look over The Victory – very interesting and educational.

    1. I went there and saw the plaque on the deck which says “Nelson Fell Here”. I have to say I wasn’t surprised, I nearly tripped over it myself.

      I’ll get me coat.

  8. After a slowish start picked up a little and got round in 21 minutes. In defence of unrip as a word I’d say it’s useful enough as ‘rip to undo’. Never heard of old rose as pink or anything else except someone who might live down the road. Nice to see ‘in cahoots’ around; so often today there’s the wearisome ‘in bed with’. Adequate workaday puzzle with no elan at all; and I agree that the beer in the clue for 13 is unusually flat.
  9. Easy-ish puzzle after a run of difficult-ish ones. Completed all correct, with full understanding, which makes a change from most recent puzzles.

    TWIT was LOI, as I too, was toying with swot.

    Have a good weekend everyone (how many shopping days left…?)

  10. Thought I’d try a morning solve for a change and duly clocked my first sub-10 in a while. Around 8 minutes. And so of course I hit ‘submit’ and the site comes back with some incomprehensible message and insists that I fill in the grid again. Which I did. And this time it showed me the solution and insisted I hadn’t solved it at all.

    So I came here in a really bad mood but Tim has cheered me up by proving that there’s someone who tells worse jokes than I do. Thanks, Tim.

    Anyway, 8 minutes. Very easy. Last in: TESSELLATED

  11. Haven’t tackled the crossword for a week or so. But came back to it today, and completed in about 15 minutes. Somehow, the brain seems clearer after a few days rest!

    IRON DUKE and POSTOPERATIVE anagrams were the first in, and the others fell into place quickly.

    Thought clues for UNRIP and WORD were very weak. I’m sure we could all do better.

    Darryl

  12. Zipped through this while proctoring an exam (and typing this comment while proctoring another), I didn’t time it, but felt like under 10. TOM THUMB from definition.
  13. 43 minutes when I finally ventured to submit, but the last ten or twelve of them were devoted to the frantic search for some solid reason to prefer WORD to WIRE for 15ac. I still haven’t found one, as there are probably more one-letter words (and they are more frequent) than one-letter wires. A really stupid clue, in my opinion, and I assume the setter just didn’t see the other possibility. Eventually I plumped for the “right” choice, but only because WIRE seemed too antiquated — I kept seeing my Uncle Max in my head talking about the wires he was sending and receiving, and he died in 1973. It spoiled the whole puzzle for me.

    No problem with NIPPERS, as I saw SNIPPER first. No problem with TWIT, as I saw the WIT first. TOM THUMB might have been my COD, if the puzzle hadn’t been completely spoiled, of course. Well, at least it was the first one I completed this week.

    1. I had WIRE in early but reviewed it later and once I had thought of WORD as an alternative I quickly decided WIRE had to be wrong. As far as I can see it only fits with ‘message’ as there’s no way a wire is going to come with only with one letter in it, so ‘usually’ wouldn’t apply. But maybe there’s another case for WIRE that I am missing.

  14. I’ve found this week’s puzzles tough, so was a little relieved to find an easier one today. It put me in a good mood for the morning.
  15. About 20 minutes, and it felt easy, but my LOI was WIRE, instead of WORD. My rationale in choosing between the two was that WIRE sounds like/consists of two letters, Y, R. Either way, not the greatest clue I’ve ever seen. I know of Hardy the Captain, but not that the Sun doesn’t publish on Sundays. Regards to all.
  16. 7:28 for me – not a disaster, but I felt I should have been faster.

    21ac could equally well have been “Admiral stops short by his vessel, suffering (8)” since Hardy was himself an admiral. I’m surprised dorsetjimbo didn’t mention the Hardy Monument, given its location.

    1. Well one lives and learns! I’ve been to this, admittedly about 50 years ago, so presumably I read the plaque or whatever other information is displayed there, but I have had it firmly in my brain for decades that it commemorates the author of the same name who is much associated with the area. Whatever its purpose, in my view it’s a hideous monstrosity and a blot on the beautiful landscape.
      1. How right you are Jack. It’s on my list of things to blow up and I would never give the wretched thing publicity. The view from there is however spectacular.
        1. I admit it’s a bit phallic, but I don’t think it’s all that bad. There’s a lovely walk up to it from Abbotsbury too.

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