Times 25124 – Phew!

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 55:09 – Struggling all the way

I found it very hard to get going today. Lots of involved and devious wordplay, along with several cunningly-disguised definition left very few easy starters. This was a real gem of a puzzle with many, many good clues. It’s hard to single out one to be COD, but I think 3d just shades it. But it’s one of those puzzles where everyone will probably pick a different clue to be their own favourite.

Of course, I’d rather have tackled it on a day when I didn’t have the added pressure of having to write a blog for it!

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

Across
1 VAC + UsA – The plural of vacuum
4 GOT + OT + OWN
8 COUNTER + ME(AS + U)RE
10 OWNERSHIP = (NEW PRO HIS)* – ‘deeds should prove it’ was the beautifully disguised definition
11 RISER – rev hidden in featuRES IRaqi – part of a flight of stairs
12 ISAIAH – reversed alternate letters of tHe AnImAlS hIt
14 PANGOLIN = (P + IN) about ANGOLa – Not a creature I knew. I got the PIN quickly, but it took a while for me to realise it was the country that was tailless and not the anteater.
17 PAYPHONE – cd
18 FOODIE = falsE + I DO + OF all rev – ‘course lover’ was another well-hidden definition, I DO = ‘claim by actor’ was good too. That’s someone who performs an action, rather than a thespian.
20 gUNMAN – I was only vaguely aware of this word. It seemed at first to be the opposite of the definition given, but it’s ‘take courage from’ in the sense of removing it rather than receiving it.
22 REMINDFUL = REF (man in middle) + UnwelL about MIND (care)
24 FLOG + A + DEAD + HORSE – Not the first time I’ve come across ‘punch’ for HORSE in these puzzles. A Suffolk Punch is a horse breed, although you have to look quite hard to find ‘punch’ defined as a breed in its own right.
25 HYSTERIA = HI (how do you do) about oYSTER (seafood that doesn’t start) + A
26 GUEST = “GUESSED”
Down
1 VICTORIA PLUM = (I + VICAR TO)* + PLUMb
2 CHUm + RN – ‘China’ for friend is something of a chestnut these days. It’s from Cockney Rhyming Slang – China plate / Mate.
3 AFTERMATH = A + F + TERM + A + TH – A really elegant clue with a well-disguised definition (what follows) and a natural surface reading. My COD.
4 GURKHA = AmateurisH + KilleR + UnsunG all rev
5 THE + SPI(A)N
6 TASER = RE (on) + SAT (Sun’s predecessor – as in days of the week) all rev. The definition is something that stuns.
7 WORD SALAD = W (with) + OR (men) + DS (busy investigating) + A + LAD (boy) – ‘The busies’ is a slang term for the police, which I associate mainly with the Scouse dialect. I’d not come across a Word Salad before, but it makes logical sense to mean a jumbling up of one’s words.
9 PRINCE ALBERT = (PRINTER CABLE)* – a neat anagram
13 ABYSMALLY = AY (I agree) about BY (close to) + SMALL (minor)
15 GROUNDs + HOG – Punxsutawney Phil being the most famous example.
16 INTRUDER = hINT + RUDER – ‘Butter in’ is the definition, again well-hidden
19 I’M PAL + A
21 NIGHT = NIGH (to hand) + The, possibly the most contrived way of cluing a T that I’ve ever come across!
23 FURZE = “FURS”

31 comments on “Times 25124 – Phew!”

  1. 22:13 .. definitely tricky.

    Thanks for parsing ABYSMALLY, Dave (sorry, that sounds like you did a terrible job of parsing when the opposite is true) – it’s the one I couldn’t figure out.

    As you say, it’s hard to imagine a letter ‘T’ being clued more deviously than in NIGHT.

    Lots of fine clues, but I’ll nominate FOODIE for COD. Neatly hidden definition.

  2. Thanks for the blog Dave and especially for explaining “plumb” which I didn’t see at first either.

    Struggled with a fair bit of this and at one stage thought I was headed for a DNF. Then spent about the same time working out the missing parsings. The most cunning was probably FOODIE with its separation between “of” and “course”.

    Top puzzle to end the week.

  3. I struggled on this one but not to start with as I had the top half completed within 15 minutes apart from PANGOLIN (DK) and the second part of WORD SALAD (also DK). But then my problems really began and I spent another 55 minutes on the lower half not helped by writing in BEARD at 23dn (thinking ears of corn). ABYSMALLY, UNMAN and PAYPHONE were the last to fall.

    I don’t quite understand 1dn although it went in early. In what context does ‘plumb’ = ‘bang’ or ‘bang on’?

    Well done on the blog, Dave. Glad it wasn’t my Friday!

    Edited at 2012-03-30 01:40 am (UTC)

    1. It’s certainly not a DBE, Jack. If PRESERVE were clued by ‘Victoria plum’ then that would be a DBE, but this is the reverse which is fine. No worse then ISAIAH being clued by ‘book’. I’m sure any variety of plum can be used to make jam, but a Victoria plum is still undoubtedly a preserve item.
      As for plumb – Chambers offers the definition of ‘precisely; utterly’ as in ‘he hit the target plumb in the centre’, and ‘bang on’ is listed as ‘right on the mark’.
    2. If anyone read this before the final edit I sorted out the other half of my query on 1dn. I wasn’t thinking straight!
      1. I did read it and responded. But I think you can be excused – the hour is late. Time for bed, methinks.
  4. Rather than be disheartened was encouraged that I got through 2/3 of this quite challenging puzzle. I love putting myself through the Times puzzles precisely because the setter and editor respect that the reader of the paper and solver is reasonably intelligent and hence do not pull any punches, of course scrupulously within rules. Nice..thank you.
  5. Thanks for clarifying ‘plumb’ which I see now. The context is everything and I hadn’t considered that one.
  6. 80 minutes, so a win for the setter, with last in INTRUDER and COD to PAYPHONE just ahead of FOODIE. Thanks to the setter for a classy puzzle and to Dave for the parsing of TASER.
  7. 26:44, solved online as I’m at home this morning.
    As others have noted this is an absolutely superb puzzle. Too many great clues to nominate one but as a general comment I put almost nothing in without understanding the wordplay, which I regard as a mark of quality. It certainly makes for the kind of puzzle I enjoy most.
    Last in PAYPHONE. I stared at it for nearly five minutes and went through every possible alphabetic permutation before seeing it. And kicking myself, naturally.
    Bravo setter.
  8. Absolutely first class puzzle that seemed to get harder as one progressed from north to south. My last in was PAYPHONE which I still don’t understand – must have a mental block. I was looking for something to do with peeling bells but eventually just guessed the only word I could fit into the checkers to finish in 30 minutes

    Well done Dave and thanks to the setter

  9. A splendid puzzle to end the working week – thank you setter. I was very pleased to complete this one, albeit with an error (I didn’t know the word Furze and guessed Furse) – two or three years ago I wouldn’t have got close. Found the right hand side easier than the left and needed all the checkers in V?C?O?I? for the penny to drop and the fruit to appear. Aren’t VPs a beautiful fruit? We planted a small one last spring and it produced two plums – hopefully we’ll get a much bigger crop this summer.

    I thought some of the definitions were terrific, e.g. preserve item, totter, take courage and course lover, but best of all “butter in” !!

    FOI Flog A Dead Horse. These puzzles would be much harder still if they did away with the enumeration like in the barred grid ones.

  10. Some of us this side of the Atlantic came to know the term which was sometimes used to describe the speech stylings of former VP candidate Sarah Palin. My husband has an old chestnut of a joke about a brand of chewing tobacco called Prince Albert. 43 minutes of all-in wrestling. Great puzzle. Very good blog.

    Edited at 2012-03-30 11:51 am (UTC)

  11. Splendidly tough – I did think I wasn’t going to finish but several pennies dropped just before the 30 minute mark.
  12. At 15dn when I had just G—–H– I thought for a moment it might be “gonorrhea” which seemed to fit the possible definition of being a reason to keep mostly to oneself, but fortunately I couldn’t justify the rest!
    1. I have to say, had the first thing to enter my mind on seeing G_____H__ been GONORRHEA, I’d have posted anonymously, too.
      1. Oh I don’t know. It’s natural that an Englishman should be more familiar witth the pox than with the rodent.
  13. Was determined to finish this after a week of DNFs, and I did, all correct, but in a very long time…! Thanks, Dave, for parsing TASER and VP, and thanks, Setter, for a really satisfying puzzle. Only unknown today was WORD SALAD, but it was clearly clued.

    LoI: FOODIE

    CoD: PAYPHONE

    Good start to the weekend!

  14. Over an hour. Just finishing was reward enough. But many of the clues were exceptionally clever. A+ for the setter, gold star for the blogger.

    Enigma

  15. Another to pass on congrats to the setter. Superb puzzle. 34 minutes for all but NIGHT, UNMAN, PAYPHONE and ABYSMALLY and another hour or so for them. So many good clues.
  16. 20:22 here, not the slowest of the week for me but a couple of much easier puzzles were solved after just three hours of sleep. Last night I got in a good six!

    17ac – I had ??Y?H?N? and thought “That could be anything…that could be ANYTHING!” Luckily I wasn’t convinced and soon got 1D and the correct answer.

  17. 39′ 1″ on line after an excellent by tiring day driving/stoking a steam engine, a reward for passing 60. An excellent, demonically twisted piece of work, this, with WORD SALAD unknown, and VACUA never previously encountered. All those cunning “can you guess where it splits?” clues made it a real challenge and a fine piece of work.
    To date, there are very few 2 minute solvers on the leaderboard. I suppose if you want to type it all up only after you’ve solved, you still have to solve.
    CoD to almost any randomly selected clue.
  18. Strewth. An hour plus with interruptions. Genuinely satisfying to beat a path through the forest on this one, if not quite through the heart of darkness. Outstnding cluing.
  19. I agree, a very fine puzzle, but not easy for me at about 50 minutes. COD to FOODIE, although there are quite a number more potential nominees. My last entries were the GUEST/FURZE crossing, both very nice examples of the homophone style, that I don’t think can cause any arguments. I hadn’t known of WORD SALAD or the VICTORIA PLUM before, and had I been asked pre-puzzle about the plural form of vacuum, I’d have said ‘vacui’. Thanks to Dave, and to the setter. Regards to all.
  20. This took me ages. I spent at least 10 minutes staring at the PAYPHONE/INTRUDER crossing. I must have had a mental block – especially since I had ***RUDER. It was that wonderful definition,”butter”, that did for me. “Butter” is always “ram” in crossword speak. Deliciously misleading. LOI was PAYPHONE which produced a fine eureka moment. Again, I’d been toying with PAYCHECK and words beginning with PSYCH***. And it turned out to be a DD. Compliments to the setter for this nice offering. 54 minutes.
  21. A really brilliant puzzle. Finished in 75 mins. but with Foodie missing, and with 4 others with word play not understood. Still not sure of 19D – does claim = I’m? COD would have been Foodie if only I had solved it.
    Many thanks to blogger and indeed to setter.
    Mike and Fay
    1. You have to treat ‘Claim made by friend’ as a complete unit. So “I’M PAL” is a claim a friend might make.
  22. 17:49 here for an absolutely first-rate puzzle. My compliments to the setter.

    I’m another who had PAYPHONE as LOI. Hard to choose a COD from so many goodies, but I rather liked 6dn (TASER) – having wasted time trying to make something out of “Herald”.

    WORD SALAD sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t have defined it (I’d probably have guessed it was a kind of word puzzle).

    1. I had that thought too, Tony, but the reference might have been just a little unfair!

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