Times 25,121

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
26:13 on the club timer, which certainly indicates something of a step up in difficulty from yesterday. Less to do with the vocabulary per se, I think, than some very roundabout definitions. Definitely a challenge, though on the whole a fair one, I think.

Across
1 SUBPOENAED – (UPONSEABED)*; with “called to judge” being the subtle definition.
6 SCAT – SAT around Clubs gives the form of jazz singing. Nice.
9 SURGEON – STURGEON with the guT removed.
10 COWHIDE – OW in CHIDE.
12 SQUARE MEAL – ARE (=”live”) Music in SQUEAL.
13 ETH – (THE)*; with not one but two definitions, the character and the girl. The most famous Eth would be the one portrayed by a young June Whitfield.
15 OPERAS – OPeration + ERAS.
16 REGIONAL – ION in REGAL.
18 MASSACRE – (SAM)rev. + SACRED.
20 NEURON – EURO in N, N to get the nerve cell.
23 CUR – CURT without its tail.
24 IMPATIENCE – (AMINCEPIET)*.
26 CYPRESS – YPRES in CS. The cypress has been a symbol of mourning for centuries.
27 MEDIATE – MEDICATE without the Cold.
28 PHEW – Page + HEW.
29 GRANADILLA – recALL I’D AN ARGument; if a hidden word (even a reversed one) is one of the last few clues you solve, as this one was for me, it’s punching above its weight.
 
Down
1 SUSA – South U.S.A.; the original Susa is about as old a city as you get.
2 BAROQUE – B.A. (I suppose you need to be clever to a certain extent to get a BA, though not a man, of course) + ROQUET. One plays a roquet in the game of croquet, so I imagine this will be one of those rather outre bits of vocabulary you either know or don’t know.
3 ONE DAY AT A TIME – double def., which struck me as bald to the point of barely being cryptic.
4 NANTES – (SET NAN)rev. gives the French city.
5 ESCHEWED – ESCHER + WE’D; I think the definition of Escher as “impossible drawer” was the most cunning of the day.
7 CHILEAN – HI in CLEAN; we’ve moved on from yesterday’s regions of Spain to wider Spanish speakers.
8 TOE THE LINE – (THEELITENO)*.
11 WELL I NEVER DID – i.e. could be a poetic expression of “I never did well”.
14 NOT MUCH COP – cryptic def.
17 PROPOSER – (SO)rev. in PROPER.
19 SCRAPIE – SCRAP + I.E.; I was looking for something more predator-like than a disease.
21 ROCKALL – if you leave nobody easy, you must by definition rock them all; the island itself is remote and historically controversial.
22 STAMEN – Area in STreet MEN; another hard-to-pick definition in “fertiliser”.
25 HERA =”HEARER”; and one last cunning definition – Hera was regularly deceived while Zeus was out impregnating various nymphs and maidens; these adventures regularly ended badly for the ladies concerned.

32 comments on “Times 25,121”

  1. Medium difficulty, but fair. Much cop perhaps?
    Never heard of SUSA, but not hard to twig.
    Spent ages on GRANADILLA (given the various spellings that fit, when minus HERA); then saw the bloody inclusive! More Spanish here: it means “little granada [pomegranate]”.
    Not sure that today’s BA is at all clever (2dn) — about a couple of A-levels from the 1960s I’d say, judging by a few of the sights I’ve seen coming off the production line (aka graduation ceremony).
    Anyone else held up by the SCAT/CHILEAN pair?
    And what about “giving leather”=COWHIDE? Or is flexibility indicated?

    Edited at 2012-03-27 02:52 am (UTC)

    1. I like the flexibility line but isn’t it just an inversion of ‘Tell off about cry of pain giving [us] leather’?
  2. 36′; 32 minutes online, with the last 4 or 5 spent looking at 5d in despair, which is why I went offline. Not to mention it was time for cocktails. I’d actually thought of Escher and couldn’t think what to do with him, I’m ashamed to say. SUSA I knew from Mary Renault; I actually got HERA from the definition, only later–rhoticist that I am–spotting the, ah, homophone. Never heard of a GRANADILLA, or of NOT MUCH COP. Ulaca, think of Ella Fitzgerald when you think of scat, doo wa. Thanks, Tim, for explaining 11, which I think I need to give my COD to, retrospectively.
    1. I think I’ll definitely remember it now – I’ve just watched an old Morse episode on YouTube and she (I’m pretty sure it was her) was singing a Cole Porter number.
  3. … and two wrong, ‘wera’ – a cockney goddess I invented, W + ‘ERA – and ‘crenadilla’ (anagram of ‘recall I’d an’) for the devious reverse hidden – as ever, my Achilles’ heel and COD.

    Didn’t know SUSA and didn’t recall SCAT (but I seem to remember having it here not so long ago), but thought this was an excellent challenge of higher than medium difficulty, say, medium-well.

    I had ‘plop’ for a while at 28. It is after all the type of sound one hears when one is is finding relief – and it fits the wordplay.

  4. 35 minutes for all but 4, 5, 9 and 1d which delayed me another 17 and then they all came in a rush. I had thought for a while I was going no further and would need to resort to aids. You’ll gather from this that I also have never heard of SUSA.

    ESCHEWED is a superb clue amongst many very good ones.

    On 2dn, I can’t find ‘overelaborate’ justified in any of the dictionaries (I looked in six). As it’s one of my favourite periods in both music and architecture I’m glad that the reference books don’t as yet regard the word as synonymous with over-anything, although a couple of them advise that the style did eventually degenerate.

    Following the recent discussion regarding maiden overs being described from different points of view I’m interested that MASSACRE is defined here as ‘bloody victory’ whereas all the dictionaries I have consulted (the same six as above) define it only in terms of defeat (or neither, since it doesn’t necessarily have to relate to a contest of any sort).

    Edited at 2012-03-27 05:58 am (UTC)

    1. I didn’t even hesitate over this, because this usage is so common.
      I think Chambers at least comes a bit closer than you might like: it has “flamboyant”, which seems quite close. It also has “rococo”, which in turn is defined as “florid, extravagant in style” and even “grotesque”.
    2. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary has ‘overelaborate’ as a main entry. The Oxford English Dictionary has ‘over-elaborate’.

      Darryl

  5. … and that one was ESCHEWED, a great word, and one I feel I should have got. Devious ‘impossible drawer’ just didn’t click. I put in ‘exceeded’ as it was the only word I could fit, and wasn’t surprised to find it wrong.

    Unknowns: SUSA, GRANADILLA.

    Not quite as easy as yesterday’s, but for me certainly much quicker than most.

    Edited at 2012-03-27 08:41 am (UTC)

    1. “I put in ‘exceeded’ as it was the only word I could fit”.

      Unfortunately I spotted EXCRETED and very nearly went for it as defined by “not made use of”, but fortunately wiser thoughts prevailed.

  6. 34 minutes, and while I was doing it, I was thinking “some people are going to be really quick on this today, but I’m not”. 1ac&d went in pretty quickly, but after that everything was a (pleasant) struggle, for the most part followed by a d’oh moment – most especially for SURGEON and MEDIATE, spookily linked by position, theme and construction. PHEW wasn’t my last in, but was how I felt on completion.
    Is it churlish to point out that some Chileans speak Welsh?
    I didn’t know GRANADILLA, even though I’ve got a very close relative stubbornly refusing to die on my fence – it even occasionally produces fruit, and flowered as late as December last year. I was grateful for the reverse hidden, or I’d definitely have spelled it with an E. I’ve (sort of) heard of that.
    SQUARE MEAL made me smile, as did NOT MUCH COP, but I’ll go with ESCHEWED for my CoD nomination – “impossible drawer” indeed. Getting Ypres into a clue was also cute: it was the first battle I thought of, but still my last entry. D’oh.
    Tim: great, splendidly illustrated blog! Cheers!
  7. A bit of a strange mixture this puzzle. I solved about 75% of it straight from the definitions (1A, 6A, 9A, 12A – I could go on), then some of it is very easy (8D, 11D, 14D) leaving just a handful of clues that had to worked on. But by then I had so many checking letters they were comparitively easy. 15 minutes to solve and thanks to setter for using Escher and reminding me of Ron and Eth.
  8. 47 minutes, which somehow felt longer than that, with numerous long pauses where nothing went in. A couple I thought I’d never get – SUSA, NANTES & SURGEON in particular. I had no idea how BAROQUE worked, so thanks for the enlightment Tim and posthumously Descartes. A good work out. COD to GRANADILLA over ESCHEWED.
  9. 35 minutes. I found this difficult, but enjoyed every minute of it. None of the difficulty came from unknowns: in fact the only thing I didn’t know today was my last in, SUSA. I wasted ages trying to fit SA in. Similarly I spent ages pondering combinations of do, re, mi etc in 20ac.
    In a quality field COD to “impossible drawer”, of course.
    Great stuff.
  10. Some very easy, some very obscure.So Eschewed and Susa could be guessed at, but would need to reference check to be sure. I dont like Eth though….an obscure letter I can accept, but with the checker being a character in a TV series that stopped 52 years ago? Trust me, if you werent there, you wont know it….it hasnt lasted.Lets dump clues like that.
    1. I have been known to complain about “clues like that” but I don’t think any of these are “clues like that”.
      > If you haven’t heard of Escher you’ve got the definition “not made use of” and (using “we had”) E_C_EWED.
      > I hadn’t heard of SUSA but there is little doubt once you twigged that you have to lift and separate “South America” (I nearly didn’t)
      > Eth is just a girl’s name (I didn’t even register the TV series), and an anagram of “the”. The letter may be a bit obscure but you’ve got three chances to win!
      All seems perfectly fair to me. Not necessarily easy, but that’s a different matter.
      1. The Glums were from a radio series called Take It From Here featuring mainly Jimmy Edwards. They reflected a common social situation of the time. It was much later that a TV version made a very brief appearance – society had changed and no longer related to Ron and Eth
        1. Thanks – I was very dimly aware of this I think but it didn’t occur to me as the answer went in.
          You do learn some fascinating stuff here, don’t you? Scientists, obscure poets, ancient cities, old radio shows – you name it!

          Edited at 2012-03-27 11:14 am (UTC)

      2. Keriothe, I take your point. Eth was the only clue I was having a go at, and never having heard of Eth as a girls name (does anyone know a person called Eth? I suppose it could be a pet name, but we are in trouble if we go down that route), I felt that the TV reference was far too obscure. Of course, had I seen through the very simple “the wrong”, I should have got it anyway. Whats the betting I meet an Eth tomorrow?

        Cheers.

        1. But there IS no TV reference in the clue. The “character” is the letter eth, not a character in a radio/TV programme.
        2. Short for Ethel isn’t it? I found this one hard and had a DNF with four missing after several sessions.
  11. For 13 across I could make a case for “esh”. Esh is an alphabetical character (see Wikipedia) and also a misspelling of “she” for girl.
  12. I got stuck in the SE corner for ages because I didn’t see the hidden word! This was a lovely crossword – although I wasn’t sure I was on the setter’s wavelength. I had a great eureka moment when I recognised Escher as the “impossible drawer”. 45 minutes and another 15 for the SE corner. Very enjoyable.
  13. Should you happen upon an Eth, as you reckon you might, perhaps she will, due to her likely age and being previously unknown to you, insist upon the more full and formal ‘Ethel’.

    Think of:
    Ethel Merman
    Dame Ethel Smyth
    Ethel Barrymore
    Ethel Revnell (for those, maybe, who recall the long-ago era of TIFH and the rest).

  14. Relished this. 36 minutes. Apart from the delightful 5 nothing stands out and yet the whole thing does in a way. A sharp, jabbing contest I’m glad to have come through.
  15. Much knottier than yesterday’s and all the more enjoyable for that. 27/30 with Hera, Granadilla and Rockall missing and, like Janie LB, a wrong guess at Exceeded for Eschewed. My new pb of four in a row all correct without aids (including Sunday’s) therefore ends.

    I don’t think I’ve seen a clue like the one for Eth before where the definitions are at the start and end with the wordplay in the middle.

  16. About 35 minutes for a very good puzzle. I join the parties nominating ESCHEWED for COD, but honorable mentions to the outlandish HERA, CYPRESS for including Ypres in the wordplay, CHILEAN and ROCKALL. My last entry was GRANADILLA, so I agree it was well hidden. As often happens, I got a lot of unknown things via wordplay, such as SUSA,and NOT MUCH COP, but I got BAROQUE from the definition. Regards, and thanks to our blogger and the setter.
  17. The Glums originated as a parody of a deservedly long-forgotten series called The Plums about an ordinary family. (Theme song “Come, come come, remember you’re a Plum”)
    I still remember Ron complaining about some uncharacteristic action as ‘unEthical’, though not what it was!
  18. 20:28 for me – tired, as usual at the moment, on a Tuesday. A very fine puzzle, with 5dn (ESCHEWED) my COD for the wry smile when I finally twigged what the “impossible drawer” was all about.

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