Times 25,085

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
You know those puzzles where the definition or the word lengths alone give away the answer, and there are lots of obvious devices, crossword cliches, and laboured attempts at concealment? Well imagine the opposite of that, and you have today’s puzzle. 22:38 of grappling, and (from my POV at least) this was both hard work and a thoroughly rewarding struggle. Hopefully others will agree the challlenge was a) fair and b) worth the effort!

Across
1 CAPUCHIN – CircA + [Hot CUP]rev. + IN. As is often referenced in clues for this creature, the capuchin monkey is named after the Capuchin monkey
5 PROFIT – i.e. I.T. as used by a PROF.
9 PROBOSCIS – PRO(=for) + [Channel Islands in BOSS]. The trunk, of course, belongs to an elephant; I was slightly flummoxed by thinking of insects at first. Luckily, an insect’s proboscis is incapable of lifting a sticky bun out of your hand.
11 SOAVE – last one in by some distance; with a four word clue, and checkers S_A_E, I worked out that SOAVE was a likely looking answer to make “Italian wine” the definition; so how could “store empty” form the wordplay? I spent ages trying to think of a word for “store” from which I could extract the middle to make SOAVE. Then I think I must have become attuned to the playful nature of some other clues, and realised that an empty store is a store with nothing in it, i.e. 0 in SAVE.
12 TEACHER – [Classes + HE] in TEAR(=career).
13 RALLIED – manchesteR + ALLIED.
14 EASTERN REGION – (ENGINEERSROTA)*. Part of the old BR network, which I guess you have to be of a certain age to have travelled. Any of our more venerable contributors prepared to reveal they travelled the LNER, which goes back even further?
16 IN SHORT SUPPLY – IN SHORTS + UP + PLY(=work).
20 TENTAGE – (AGENT)* in TErm.
21 AFRICAN – I CAN after A FRench.
23 HAITI – rev. and hidden in milITIA Has.
24 SLIPPERED – SLIP + P.E. + RED.
25 PILFER – [RE-FLIP]rev.
26 ANCESTRY – [Name in ACES] + TRY(=hear, as a judge would a case).
 
Down
1 CAPOTE – O.T. in [CAP(=top) + English].
2 POONA – (OP)rev. + ON(=about) + A. Known these days as Pune, and historically important (though as with most places in the subcontinent, my familiarity comes almost entirely from cricket).
3 CLOTHES – HE in CLOTS.
4 INCORRECTNESS – (SISTERCONCERN)*.
6 RESOLVE – i.e. RESOLVE and RE-SOLVE.
7 FRAGILITY – [G.I. + LITerally] in FRAY.
8 TREADING – insisT + READING.
10 STRANGULATION – [RAN GULl] in STATION.
14 ESSENTIAL – Energy + [AIT in L. NESS]all rev. Making “windy” (where ‘wind’ rhymes with ‘mind’) mean “reverse” rather than, say, “jumbled up” seemed a bit of a stretch to me, but I’ll let it go.
15 GIFT SHOP – tHe in [POST FIG]rev. I think “store for the present” was my favourite definition today.
17 OPALINE – [A Litre] in OPINE.
18 PORK PIE – 0(=love, as in tennis) in (KIPPER)*.
19 ONE DAY – even letters in sOoNhErDiArY.
22 COROT – CO. ROT; I thought to myself that Corot rang a bell immediately, and so he should, as I blogged about him six months ago.

22 comments on “Times 25,085”

  1. This felt foot-draggingly slow at 32 minutes and glad it genuinely seems to have been harder than I thought. Last in soave also. This teacher rallied eventually. Poona is a very out-of-date spelling is it not? My only quibble.
  2. I was quickly in tune with this setter and trundled through in 20 minutes without any real difficulty along the way. I share the reservation about “windy” as a reversal indicator. Also not absolutely sure that in these days of regional control centres that “station” is equivalent to police HQ – but none of that held me up.

    The LNER was disbanded on nationalisation so it disappeared in 1948. Those lines down the eastern side of the country were famous for the Flying Scotsman and the magnificent Mallard that can be seen at the Railway Museum in York. The old railway companies were also large owners of ships, sadly often forgotten.

  3. I enjoyed this a lot, eventually finishing (with OPALINE) in 73 minutes, having been held up mostly in the NE and SW. Among a fine bunch – not to mention the reverse hidden, which found me out once more – as a lifelong Manchester United fan, I must choose 13 as COD. Muchos kudos to the setter.
    1. Clue was:
      At last Manchester United bounced back

      Printed here in Australia the morning of 16/3/12 when United had just been ripped to shreds (again) by Athletic Bilbao, so not particularly apposite.

  4. Just over 16 minutes here, but I wrecked it for myself by unaccountably putting in ANY DAY at 19ac. Looking at it now I don’t know how I did this. I will try and bear in mind in future that when solving cryptic crossword clues it is generally a good idea to use one’s brain.
    Thanks for explaining SOAVE: I didn’t see how it worked. The wordplay that is: I know how the wine works.
    After 1ac and 9ac I was looking for more monkeys.
  5. 30 minutes for most, but another 10 to close out SOAVE, RALLIED and RESOLVE in the NE corner.

    I had some misgivings about ‘windy’ but if one reads it as windy as in ‘winding around’ rather than ‘blustery’ then it makes sense to me.

    I also had ANY DAY until I went back to check.

    Edited at 2012-02-14 11:30 am (UTC)

  6. Builders have given me a day of rest today so I’ve had time both to complete the crossword and to log in here! Enjoyable solve so thanks to the setter for the worthwhile challenge and to koro for the blog. COD: HAITI – well hidden and forced me to amend my careless GIFT WRAP to GIFT SHOP.
  7. This is one of those efforts where the setter likes to push the boundaries just a little bit, and by and large I think it worked well.. (I’m also not sure about windy = reversed) – but overall I very much enjoyed it.
    I understood 11ac ok but for some reason had a lot of trouble with 15dn and 25 ac, my last two in..
  8. 15 enjoyable minutes. I had trouble with 17d and 20a which I had never heard of but luckily the wordplay was clear. No problems with 9a as this word was in a crossword recently so I worked out the wordplay after finding the word.

  9. Found it tricksy, but it was one of those where I knew I could finish it, given time… No unknown words (TENTAGE my first in), and even OPALINE I’d heard of somewhere long ago.

    LoI (by quite a long way): PILFER, as I couldn’t think of THAT meaning for ‘appropriate’.

  10. Around 50 minutes. My solve followed yours almost to the letter, Tim, and just a few paces behind. I also echo you sentiments. I dips me lid to the setter. COD to PILFER, I think, although RALLIED was very good also.
  11. Certainly tricky. It took me an hour for all but the south-west corner, and then another half-hour to polish off the last four there. Knew 2dn from

    There’s a regiment in Poona,
    That would infinitely sooner,
    Play single-handed polo,
    A sort of ‘polo-solo’,
    Than play a single chukka,
    With a team that isn’t pukka.

    I have no idea where this comes from. Does anyone know?

  13. Heavens. After breezing through yesterday I was blown far off course today. Over an hour, but an enjoyable struggle with a very clever puzzle. LOI was SOAVE, same as Tim, just from the definition, and then it took me a further 10 minutes or so to see the ‘nothing inside’ bit. Very nice. A fine outing by the setter all around. Thanks, and regards.
  14. But somewhere just short of the hour fretting over the parsing for SOAVE at the end. Glad to read Tim’s parsing which put me out of my misery. Though I still don’t like the conceit; and could equally well have done without the “windy” device at 14dn. And maybe I should chuck in the “pâté” anagind from 18dn for good measure. Altogether. then, this felt unTimesish.
  15. 25ac brings to mind the lines from “The Glums”.

    Eth: One of the girls in the office has been stealing things! Ron, we’ve got a pilferer!
    Ron: But how are you going to get her to take it, Eth?

  16. 15:15 for me – I started off at a brisk pace but then seemed to lose the setter’s wavelength. And I wasted a couple of minutes at the end before I spotted that I’d typed ESSENTIAR (presumably the result of some kind of brain malfunction as R is nowhere near L on the keyboard).

    Like others I bunged in ANY DAY, but fortunately checked the wordplay and corrected it straight away. And like others I wasn’t entirely convinced by “windy” in 14dn.

  17. Just on the hour but in two sessions. I found this tough but really quite fair though I had no idea why SOAVE and ESSENTIAL were the answers! So thanks to blog for explaining. Oh and I was lazily caught by ANY DAY too!
  18. 39 difficult but enjoyable minutes, although I couldn’t get a single across on the first pass. Couldn’t think of SOAVE for the longest time, and then couldn’t figure out how it worked; thanks, Tim. I was too clever by half at 21ac: I unfortunately remembered that Djibouti was formerly known as the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas, and tried to solve accordingly. Lots of wonderful clues, but I suppose my COD goes to PILFER, with GIFT SHOP a close second.

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