Times 25,103 – The Orpington Mangel-Wurzel

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 15 minutes

Nothing really difficult today. A couple of old devices (the chicken and the watch) that if you haven’t met them before might give a problem and a slightly old fashioned feel with 1930s terminology for necking and a socially unpopular 1970s business activity. I’m expecting some fast times today.

Across
1 COW-PARSLEY – (cops + lawyer)*; easy start; also known as mother-die, an invasive species;
6 SCOT – S-COT; small=S; simple dwelling=COT (inhabited by cottars); old tax;
10 ARTISTE – (sitar)*-TE; Jonathan Crowther perhaps who completes 40 years of compiling as AZED this week – well done Sir;
11 VIOLENT – VIOLE(N)T; N from (ruffia)N;
12 FIRST-BORN – FI(R)ST-sounds like borne; resistance=R (physics); the most driven of ones offspring;
13 MITRE – M(a)I(n) T(a)R(g)E(t); churchman’s silly uniform;
14 AFOOT – A-FOOT; 30.48 centimeters;
15 DAMASCENE – MAD reversed – SCENE; this perhaps not the best of times for this clue to appear;
17 BANDICOOT – BANDI(COO)T; (bill and) COO is what sweethearts did in the 1930s; small urban marsupial;
20 IDEA’D – I-DEAD; very=DEAD; strange word;
21 TULIP – old watch=TURNIP then change RN=Royal Navy into L=left;
23 THORNLESS – T(H)ORN-LESS; H from (grap)H;
25 ORGANZA – ORGAN-Z(e)A(l); bridal material made traditionally from silk;
26 GLITTER – G-LITTER; Gary perhaps;
27 STYX – sounds like “sticks” where the swede gnawers come from;
28 BESTSELLER – (George) BEST-sounds like “cellar”;
 
Down
1 CHAFF – C(H)AFF; greasy spoon=CAFF; CHAFF is better known these days as an anti-missile defence device;
2 WATER,DOWN – WATER(ship) DOWN; where the powers that be have recently decided to build, so fact follows fiction;
3 ASSET,STRIPPING – TESSA reversed – STRIPPING; in the property boom of 1970s buying a whole company, closing it down and then selling the land it owned to make a substantial profit as per Jim Slater and others;
4 STEROID – (a)STEROID; other asteroids include Eros, Iris and Juno;
5 ENVENOM – E(N)VEN-(h)OM(e);
7 CREST – the Dorking is a very old breed of chicken;
8 TITLE,DEED – TITLE(DEE)D; flower=river=DEE (there are several);
9 COMMISSIONAIRE – COMMIS-S(I-ON-AIR)E; deputy=COMMIS (particularly to the head wine waiter); Kent region=SE;
14 AMBITIOUS – AMBIT-IOUS;
16 ELEMENTAL – EL-E-MENTAL;
18 OUTRAGE – OUT-(all the)RAGE; not in=OUT;
19 THOUGHT – THOU-G(H)T; H from H(ad); GT=Grand Tourer, a term much abused by motor manufacturers;
22 LEGGY – L(EGG)Y; LY from L(iver)Y; pins=legs (slang); why are they always blonde?;
24 SORER – S(c)ORER; match official in cricket – Bill Frindall was the daddy;

26 comments on “Times 25,103 – The Orpington Mangel-Wurzel”

  1. And so a relief after yesterday’s auto-leg-biting session.

    Had to remember ancient cruciverbal lore for the Dorking and the turnip; though I’m reliably informed from a fancier and sexer of said-beasts (not the turnips) that the Dorking hails from Italy. There you go.

    Always thought the COMMIS was an under chef; but then, yesterday, I thought the “parmentier” meant “with potatoes”, after Antoine Parmentier who popularised the potato in France. So don’t trust me with posh caff talk.

    And (22dn): “why are they always blonde?”
    Because, when they’re brunette, they’re LANKY; and “ank” does not mean “urge” … and there is no such thing as “orKanza”.

    1. COMMIS can also apply to apprentice chef according to Chambers. My personal memory of the term comes from the learner wine waiter who was delegated to deal with those like me who were buying from the cheap end of the list
  2. 25 minutes for all but 5,11,7 and 20 but another 20 for them.

    IDEA’D is in Chambers but not in Collins or COED despite having references in OED that go back to the mid-18th century.

    The clue that took me longest to explain was 21ac where, even having worked out that ‘turnip’ must be a watch of sorts, I spent ages trying to confirm this. Eventually I found it in Brewer’s and later, having ventured downstairs, in the ODE I keep near the TV for verifying words I come up with during Countdown that are not covered on air. As it happens this is my newest dictionary, but surely it can’t be a new entry. For those wanting more information, ‘turnip’ is watch-specialist jargon for one that’s big and awkward.

    I’m not sure why churchmen should be singled out for wearing silly hats.

    Edited at 2012-03-06 08:48 am (UTC)

    1. Almost everything churchmen wear is silly, Jack, and the more senior, the sillier..
  3. Cantered through this in just under 15mins, so about average difficulty. I knew that a Dorking was a breed of chicken, but sadly it still took time to work out that they have a crest..
  4. 18 minutes with CREST on a wing and a prayer – the former turns out to have been almost appropriate. At least I knew the time-keeping vegetable, though that too went in on definition (T???P, a flower. Now what could that possibly be?), rationalised after finishing (if that’s allowed). FIRST BORN a rather complicated construction with the included R in an unexpected place, was also a late parse.
    I was slightly disappointed that the eccentric Lord Emsworth was only there to give “titled” – no pigs, no Blandings, no Clarence Threepwood.
    CoD to the funny hat at 13: are there any other organisations where men get away with wearing bizarre hats and frocks? Mind you, they do look lovely in precession, and doubtless the upcoming monstrous regiment are showing them a thing or two about what to wear and how to wear it.
  5. Just crept under the hour mark after hold-ups in the NE, where the small shelter meaning of ‘cot’ eluded me, even though I think we had it recently. SCOT finally fell after CREST went in from the literal, but I should have got it from ‘scot-free’.

    Even though I lived in Surrey for many years, I always got Dorking confused with Reigate. Now I will be able to keep them apart if I can just remember that Reigate doesn’t have a chicken named after it.

    ARTISTE was in today’s concise, which always helps, even if I tried ‘actress’ first – like the Bishop. COD to ENVENOM.


  6. I found this as tough as yesterday’s, and I think it probably took me almost as long…

    Anyway, IDEAD, my LOI, went in with fingers crossed.

    Unknowns today: AMBIT, Dorking as a hen, BANDICOOT, the watch, Hebe as an asteroid.

    Couldn’t parse FIRST BORN, so thanks for that, Jim.

    CoD: ENVENOM

  7. 26:49 .. similar experience to yesterday for me–a straightforward solve turning into a marathon thanks to a couple of unknowns – SCOT and the chicken. In the end I pretty much guessed both 5 and 7.
  8. 15 minutes for me. Mostly straightforward but then those ones like the chicken, the match official and the idead help me up, but fortunately not for too long.
  9. Like Janie and Sotira I found this as hard as yesterday’s at 35:07. I just never found the setter’s wavelength.
  10. I’m not sure 10 across is an appropriate term for an esteemed crossword compiler? Many thanks to this setter for a great puzzle.
  11. Completed in 27 minutes but it felt a lot longer. I didn’t know the chicken and, although I’d heard of a turnip watch, I put TULIP in without understanding. I think both ENVENOM and IDEAD are very odd words. In fact, I can’t remember having ever seen IDEAD before. I preferred yesterday’s puzzle even though it took me almost 15 minutes longer.
  12. A 30/15 split, 30 minutes for all but IDEA’D and 15 for that one. I sat looking at it thinking there’s no word which fits in there and sure enough I was right. An unusual solve for me where many went in from the definition alone. COD to DAMASCENE although I dare say they’ve got a lot more serious things to fume about these days.

    No idea about the turnips.

  13. Almost exactly like sotira: 10 minutes for all but SCOT and CREST and another 15 minutes (with a break in the middle for six hours of meetings) for those. At least with CREST there’s an alternative way into the clue but with SCOT you meet obscurity either way. This is a Mephisto clue. I love them in the Mephisto but I hate them here.
  14. 27 minutes, also held up by idead. A very dead word in a somewhat humourless puzzle. I find it hard to conceive a sentence with idead as ‘full of imagination’in it. – joekobi
  15. I agree, a relatively straightforward solve. IDEA’D was my LOI. Like most others, I’d never previously encountered this bizarre transformation of “idea” into a sort of past participle-cum-adjective. Chambers, incidentally, offers not only IDEA’D but the even weirder-looking IDEAED, both meaning “provided with an idea or ideas”, which suggests that in logic there ought to be a verb “to idea”, meaning “to provide with an idea or ideas”, but (thankfully) it doesn’t seem to exist. Amazed to learn from Jack that the word has been around since the mid-18th century. Possibly it should have stayed there. I didn’t get the watch/turnip reference at 21ac but TULIP was the only possible answer once the checkers were in place. Nor did I fully understanding the cryptic parsing of ASSET-STRIPPING. Thanks to Jimbo for explaining the TESSA bit. I thought BANDICOOT and DAMASCENE were very good.
  16. Well, I finished this at least, but it took about 45 minutes, and I didn’t find it really easy. I didn’t know the turnip watch, the Dorking, the SCOT, ECTHYMA, or the Hebe asteroid, and IDEAD and ENVENOM are wierd-looking words. COD to THORNLESS for being very cleverly misleading. I started at ‘toothless’ for ‘lacking points’, and then wandered to ‘truthless’ as ‘not so’, until I finally saw the uniformed fellow at 9D and saw the correct definition as ‘not so divided’. Well done setter. Regards to all.

  17. 27/30 today with three missing in the NE – Envenom, Violent and Crest. Made things impossible for myself by putting Shut for Scot at 6ac. No holdups apart from those.

    Tulip and Steroid went in from the checkers and defs. Thanks Jimbo for explaining those two.

    Dead for Very was quoted this morning on the Today programme by Evan Davis in a piece about slang.

  18. 7:41 here for a nice, straightforward, Mondayish sort of puzzle – a slow time for an old hand like me, but perhaps excusable given how tired I was feeling.

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