Times 25062: Snow on bloody snow

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 50:51

Had the devil of a time with this one. A definite wintry feel to it too: snow, ice, a cold wind etc. Given that it’s going to be 36˚ here today, guess I just couldn’t get into the mood.

Across
 1 S(OVIE)T. ST for ‘street’, containing {m}OVIE.
 5 QUO{d}TABLE. ‘Quod’ is a 17th century word for the slammer.
 9 DE(GEN)E,RATE. DEE for the Scots river (banker); GEN for the dope; RATE for the speed.
10 PAGE. Reverse GAP (break); E for ‘energy’.
11 S,PILLAGE. One of those great English pleonastic doubles: ‘pillage and plunder’.
12 TR(EAT)Y. TRY from ‘go’. The def is ‘After dispute one’s agreed to’.
13 S(T)AG. “A person who applies for shares in a new issue with a view to selling at once for a profit”.
15 CORNIC(H)E. Two relative obscurities. The whole is a road cut into a cliff (as well as a Roller). The container is “an overhanging mass of hardened snow at the edge of a mountain precipice” (as well as an ornamental moulding).
18 FRIESIAN. Anagram of ‘fairies’ and {garde}N. Neat = cattle.
19 Omitted, so you’ll get your electronic desserts on return.
21 CARPET. Two defs.
23 ESP(ECI)AL. Reversal of ICE in a reversal of LAPSE.
25 CON,K. Very Goon Show kind of word.
26 IN,A,C(CU)RATE. A crate is an old banger. CU for copper.
27 CAR RALLY. ALL inside CARRY (transport). Touch of the &lit.
28 SAMOSA. Reversal of AS (like) and MA’S; insert 0.
Down
 2 ONE UP. Anagram: Open U.
 3 IDEO,LOGUE. Double homophone: idea and log. (Chambers gives ‘ideAlogue’ as a misspelling. So it’s off the cards … just.)
 4 T(HE)BAN. T{hunderstorm); HE (fellow); BAN (rev. of NAB, collar, arrest [verb]).
 5 QUATERCENTENARY. Anagram of QU{een}; A R{e}CENT; TEN YEAR. (You can omit any of the four Es; I’ve just chosen the first.) The def is ‘anniversary’.
 6 OVERTURE. OVERTUR{n} (upset); substitute the initial E from ‘Elgar’. The def is ‘piece’. Suppose I won’t be the only one to have gone for OVERTURN on first blush?
 7 A(MP)LE. The def is ‘liberal’; not ‘stout’ which is the ale. I recommend Cascade if you can find it. A hint of chocolate and a slightly burnt finish. Perfect for a winter’s evening.
 8 LIGHTS,HIP. LIGHTS (lands; verb); HIP (in; trendy).
14 T(ARRA[GO]N)A. This is {shor}T; GO (journey) inside ARRAN (island); A. Never heard of it. But, as Sotira would say, I’m sure it’s very nice there. Put it down to summer and my Homage to Catatonia.
16 INDE,CO,RUM. INDE{x}, CO (firm); RUM (odd). I was sure that ‘firm’s odd’ meant the answer started with IM until realising that those are the even letters! More summer Catatonia.
17 MISTR(I)AL. “A strong, cold northwesterly wind that blows through the Rhône valley and southern France into the Mediterranean, mainly in winter”. Got this unfairly by assuming the ‘one’s’ led to the IS component of the answer.
20 A,PI{s}CES. Pisces is a Feb-March sign, I’m told. Hence winter on The Frozen Planet of the allegedly United Kingdom. As a staunch Gemini, I don’t believe in astrology; or winter for that matter.
22 POK,ER. Reversal of RE (on) and KOP — THE Kop being the greatest place in the world to watch football.
24 Omitted. HA!

35 comments on “Times 25062: Snow on bloody snow”

  1. This played to all my weaknesses and I duly struggled. Around 28 minutes but I put IDEALOGUE.

    Humph.

      1. I very nearly put this in but figured (just in time) I wouldn’t write IDEALOGY. If it’s in OED it’s got to be allowable though, surely?
      2. Strictly speaking we idealogues should probably chalk it up as a win, but it feels like getting off on a technicality. As Keriothe says, most of us would know to write ‘ideology’.
  2. I had a horrible feeling that ‘involving transport’ here is supposed to clue CAR-RY! Not so sure now.

    Edited at 2012-01-18 06:14 am (UTC)

  3. Another one off the scale for me with a time similar to vinyl1’s and increasing use of aids towards the end when I was becoming desperate to finish the thing off. I was way past enjoyment by then.

    I managed to the complete the lower half of the grid plus 13ac and 7dn in 40 minutes unaided, my only unknown here being CONK meaning ‘head’. As all Hancock fans know only too well a conk, along with a hooter, is a nose not a head although I now understand it can mean either in certain circles.

    I guessed QUOTABLE at 5ac but didn’t know QUOD for ‘prison’ so it didn’t go in until all the checkers
    were in place. The anagrist at 5dn foxed me and despite CENTENARY being obvious I eventually needed to look up the first part of the word.

    By then I had lost all confidence and I struggled to see easy answers such as PAGE, SOVIET, SPILLAGE and even 2dn, which turned out to be so simple a construction yet it eluded me to become my very last in.

    THEBAN as an Egyptian rather than a Greek has caught me out before yet apparently I failed to learn my lesson because it didn’t go in until all other options had been explored and rejected.

    Well done on your blog, McT.

    1. An hour and an half, but with ‘quader’-whatnot rather than QUATER-, as I failed to follow the instruction to delete any ‘e’. Also had ‘idealogue’ (d’oh!). Despite my flounderings, I thought this was a thunderingly good puzzle. Last in SOVIET.

      Besides the anniversary, I didn’t know STAG as gambler or CORNICHE as clifftop road. Am I the only one who only knew it as a model of Roller?

    2. My own left leg has been auto-bitten off and lies to the side of my desk. If that’s any consolation, Jack.
      1. Sorry, my brain’s still seized up and I’m not following this conversation. Can you give me a clue please?
        1. You wrote: “Well done on your blog, McT”. I replied to that. I think ulaca meant to post a separate comment, rather than a reply to yours.
          1. Thanks, and just to add to the confusion I attached my query to the comment I understood instead of the one I didn’t!
  4. 19 minutes, but not only did I go for OVERTURN on first blush, I forgot to go back and try to understand it. When will I learn?
    There was a ton of stuff I didn’t know in here, so I spent a lot of time triangulating between definitions, wordplay and checkers. The clueing is scrupulously fair though, and I very much like puzzles like this.
    I’ve been working in the city for over 15 years but I didn’t know the term STAG. Fancy that.
      1. Even I’ve heard of those! Mind you bulls are becoming very scarce around here. There are fears they may be in danger of extinction.
  5. Thanks, mctext, for a fine blog which filled in several gaps in my understanding of the wordplays. Needed to check TARRAGONA and only then realised that ‘port’ referred to the drink rather than a harbour. Diverted myself by going down the wrong path for ‘corrupt Scottish banker’ (John Law of South Sea Bubble notoriety – just in case you thought I had a more recent Scottish banker in mind).
  6. A mainly entirely logical puzzle that rewards close analysis and a steady approach. 25 minutes with no problems along the way.

    15A is difficult because it uses two relative obscurities but with C-R—H- in there aren’t too many alternatives and a “trial” use of “i” to start 16D immediately yields “index”.

    Not sure “dispute” is strong enough at 12A – “conflict” or “war” might be better. A little suspicious of “fast” in 26A – is it padding?

    And the only stout worth drinking comes from the Liffey and must be consumed in Dublin.

    1. “mainly entirely logical puzzle that rewards close analysis and a steady approach”

      … as I said, played to all my weaknesses.

  7. Would it be possible to format the answer page so that it prints on 1 page. I sometimes want to print it and it often just goes onto a second page by a few lines. I use the paper up eventually as I always print both side and use largely blank pages too, but it seems such a waste, or am I alone! Cheers Geoff, Basingstoke.
    1. If you mean format the crossword + clues (from Times Crossword Club website), I always, before printing from Firefox, change the default font to Calibri, size 15 and uncheck the ‘allow pages to choose their own fonts’ option. In 95%+ of cases this gets everything on one page (but beware crosswords with long headings). You can do something similar in IE.
    2. See the general thread on the club Forum starting June 27, 2011 and entitled Print Cryptics. It has suggestions.
  8. Couldn’t finish it last night but had a look with bleary eyes this morning and managed to get there. I’d heard of TARRAGONA but couldn’t tell you where it was. POKER and ESPECIAL from definition, CORNICHE from being the only word that looked like it would fit the space.
  9. Surprised so few solvers have never explored the Côte d’Azur and driven along the Corniche, that incised ledge running east from Nice to Menton on the Italian border.

    Enigma

  10. Had to finish in a hurry today and hit the deadline with the port fully checked but otherwise blank. Couldn’t parse in the time available, so I’m hoping there’s a Port TERRANOVA somewhere (There is, or was! It’s in Sardinia!). Wouldn’t have got the right answer anyway, I think.
    IDEA(/O)LOGUE was a trifle unfair to those of us who spell some words by the toss of a coin: how were we supposed to know both the thought and the record were sounzabitlike? I put down the A version and didn’t give it a second thought, and am pleased to see a) I’m not alone and b) it’s possible.
    Regards to all.
  11. Gave up trying to figure out why CORNICHE was so at about the hour mark, so thanks to McT for the explanation and also to our helpful setter; I was convinced it was somewhere in Cornwall, if not a country dance. (I’ve done the suggested journey by train, which is also spectacular.) Thanks also for explaining STAG, QUOD and giving the correct spelling of IDEALOGUE. TARRAGONA was also an unknown. Despite being found wanting in many departments cerebral, I quite enjoyed this one, particularly MISTRIAL for its faulty hearing, amongst a host of well constructed clues.
  13. Tough puzzle, which took me about an hour, but alas, with a mistake, with OVERTURN. Obviously I didn’t understand that wordplay, eh? I had no problem with spelling the IDEOLOGUE. But I did have a problem understanding the mass of snow and the big blow, but got those correct regardless. When I finally understood some of the wordy definitions (i.e. TREATY), I enjoyed them enough to say I liked the puzzle overall. Thanks to the setter and mctext, and regards.
  14. Just thought I’d throw in my bad parsing of this for a laugh. I had assumed that SPICE was in some way associated with winter, and that dropped meant lowered rather than removed. Perhaps it was a mulled wine thought, or that it was once common for men to receive Old Spice aftershave for xmas, who knows?

    Other than that a bit of a disaster. I was an IDEALOGUE, and even put in NOMIST for the old russian – MIST=film and N/O=not on=censored. Ho hum. Put it down to being ill.

  15. Did this slowly, other things interrupting (like living), and glad to get there. But horrified at the apparent pronunciation of ideologue.
  16. Although completed this morning, it’s only now I’ve been able to look at the blog. I also had IDEALOGUE but didn’t fall into the OVERTURE trap – so I’m generally pleased. It must be a sign of the times that SOVIET was the last one in for me. I was looking for something ending in IST. Time was when “Soviet” would have been a knee-jerk answer to any clue mentioning Russia! Another era… A rather challenging 37 minutes.
    1. I had exactly the same problem with SOVIET (my LOI too), with the addition that I was trying to work a C (“initially censored”) in there somehow. Perhaps the setter belongs to the same era.
  17. 11:16 for me, so at least a little faster than yesterday’s, but slower than it ought to have been for a puzzle which I found wholly delightful.

    I don’t recall coming across CONK meaning “head” (rather than “nose) before, but had no other problems (IDEOLOGUE has been on my list of difficult words for many years).

    My clue of the year (so far) is 2dn (“Open University forged ahead (3,2)”) – brilliant! My compliments to the setter for the whole puzzle, but for that clue in particular.

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