Times 25,127 More Haze Than Peasouper

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 20 minutes

Yes, I could always see my hands and feet and there was no smell of sulphur! The Victorian transport may be unknown, also the fleshy fruit. Other than that no real problems. Reasonable quality standard Times puzzle.

Across
1 BLUFF – two meanings; somebody should call the Government’s bluff over its threat to read everybody’s e-mails;
4 QUADRUPED – QUA(DRUPE)D; a DRUPE is a pulpy fruit with a central stone such as a mango;
9 REFORMISM – RE-FORM-IS-M; RE=scripture; class=FORM; mark=M (soon to be reinstated German currency?);
10 SATYR – SAT-YR; Pan’s pipe-playing mate;
11 UGLILY – U-(G)-LILY; G from (do)G; an uglily word;
12 EGOISTIC – (cities)* surrounds GO=work; George Osborne perhaps;
14 HEART-RENDING – HEAR(TREND)ING; the new Granny Tax;
17 EMBRYOLOGIST – (bigot+sorely+m)*; “m” from M(isguided); Sir Gavin de Beer no doubt;
20 TRANSACT – T(RA-NS)ACT; RA=Royal Artillery;
21 FLORAL – F(L)OR-AL(l); common=for all; lake=L;
23 TIARA – IT reversed-A-RA; (sex) appeal=IT; RA=painter;
24 ALBATROSS – two meanings; 1=score of 3 under par on a golf hole; 2=reference Rime of the Ancient Mariner; 3=Government’s plans to tax hot but not cold pasties;
25 SWINEHERD – S(WINE)HE-RD; novel=SHE (again); way=road=RD; sack=WINE; a tamworth is a type of pig;
26 EASED – (c)EASED;
 
Down
1 BAROUCHE – BAR-OUCH-E(questrians); four-seater Victorian carriage;
2 UNFILIAL – UN-FIL(I-A)L; in Paris a=UN; charge=FILL; A=initially “as”; Ed’s relationship with Dave, perhaps;
3 FOR,OLD,TIMES,SAKE – FOR(OLD TIMES)SAKE; feeble excuse for generally unwise course of action;
4 QUIN – QUIN(ce); reference Peter Quince in Midsummer Night’s Dream; one of the Dionnes perhaps;
5 ARMAGEDDON – A-RM-AGED-DON; jolly=Royal Marine=RM; what Spain will soon precipitate?;
6 RUSSIAN,ROULETTE – cryptic definition; as seen in The Deer Hunter;
7 PETITE – PET-I(T)E; T from (tha)T; La Môme Piaf sans doubt;
8 DIRECT – two meanings, neither of which Cleggy understands;
13 DEPRECIATE – (rated piece)*; straight line or reducing balance;
15 VITREOUS – VIT(RE-O)US; St Vitus is the patron saint of dancers;
16 STYLISED – STY-L(IS)ED;
18 STATUS – S-TA-(lieutenan)T-US; (territoral) army=TA; south=S; America=US; rank is the definition;
19 SALAMI – ALAS reversed – MI; savoury sausage or devious “death by a thousand cuts” tactic;
22 ABED – ABE-D;

44 comments on “Times 25,127 More Haze Than Peasouper”

  1. Typo for 13: Depreciate.
    Good to get an easy one. Interrupted and forgot to turn on watch again but probably something over 16 or 17 minutes. Enjoyed dj’s beady-eyed glances off. No special comments pro or con on clues: plain healthy fare.
  2. I found this more straightforward than yesterday’s.. c15 mins, about average.
    I managed not to remember what a drupe was whilst actually eating one (with my muesli).
    Pedant’s corner: it’s sulphur, not sulpher Jimbo
  3. 16 and a bit minutes, much the same experience as Ulaca. For some reason, Lincoln’s death bed caught my eye and I went from SE to NW, slowing all the way.
    A couple of really ugly words: UNFILIAL looks like something Shakespeare made up to fit the pentameter, though I see he only used it once. UGLILY is just horrible, so little used that this blog turns up if you Google it with Shakespeare attached. (I need to get a life!)
    Otherwise, a bit crosswording by numbers: even novel=She gets another outing, though I only parsed that one when I had the answer. No stand-out clue, but enjoyment much enhanced by the commentary de nos jours from Dorset, for which much thanks.
    1. Yet ‘He smiled uglily’ has a certain aptness maybe, as of a plug-ugly character. Re the kindly adverb, I’ve always liked the use of leisurely as same.
  4. Just about remembered “Tamworth” is a pig; then wondered how our rustic could carry wine in a fragment of a pot! Carefully?

    Also wondered if Abe did die ABED and it turns out he did. Cue tasteless joke: “What was the rest of the play like Mrs Lincoln?”

    Maybe the grammaticasters can tell us the adjective-to-adverb rule that allows UGLILY, but not “kindlily”. (I know there’s no such word because Agatha Christie always writes “He smiled kindly” and so forth.)

    St Vitus, the Wik tells us: “is considered the patron saint of actors, comedians, dancers, and epileptics. He is also said to protect against lightning strikes, animal attacks and oversleeping”. Shall hie me hence to the Catholic Suppository to buy his medal.

    1. I imagine it has something to do with ‘kind’ being a base (ie root) word, while ‘ug’ isn’t, this fact rather smudging the difference between the [meanings of the] words ‘kind’ and kindly’.
  5. 42 minutes for this chewy and enjoyable offering, reminiscent of one of my daughter’s Walker’s toffees I found and sampled the other day. The bottom half put up little resistance, the Tamworth aside – my problems came in the top, largely as a result of my wonted failure to remember Shakespeare’s mechanicals, despite periodic attempts to do so. Last in UNFILIAL, which I should have got earlier as it relates to a much vaunted and much talked about quality in these parts.
  6. Came to yesterday’s puzzle late yesterday Jack after golf. Was so irritated by parts of it decided only safe course of action was silence.
  7. Enjoyable (unlike yesterday: what a pity we didn’t see a series of jimbo blasts). However, I needed to cheat for VITREOUS (knew the word but couldn’t remember either it or St. Vitus).
  8. 19 minutes. Enjoyable, moderately chewy puzzle. I’d have spelled QUADRUPED wrong without the wordplay. Vitus was new to me.
    No problem with 1dn: Mrs Elton’s sister’s Barouche-Landau has always stuck in my mind. I do wish useful information would do that.
  9. 23 minutes for all but 15 and 21 and another quarter-of-an-hour on those. One or two slightly unfamiliar words but nothing to scare the horses. I wondered at first if 25ac might be a PG Wodehouse reference but Emsworth didn’t fit.

    I note you stayed out of yesterday’s debate, Jim, although you refer to it in your blog title!

    Edited at 2012-04-03 09:22 am (UTC)

  10. Actually I found the enjoyably nasty Mrs. Elton quite useful because she stopped me slinging in brougham without stopping to parse. 19 minutes – a nice carriage ride after yesterday’s which I tore up unfinished in exasperation.
  11. I think scripture class needs to be taken together, as religious education form, not as blogged. Otherwise excellent puzzle and blog, thanks all.
      1. Agree to disagree, but I don’t think scripture equals RE is valid, but scripture class would be an RE (class or form).
        1. It’s probably a generation thing but back in my early school days “Scripture” was the name of the subject we studied and no additional words were required to indicate what was meant.

          1. This was exactly how I read it (scripture = RE) and I didn’t hesitate because I’ve certainly heard the word used like this. Curiously though I can’t find it in any of the dictionaries I have access to. These days of course RE means something very different (and a good thing too in my book) but still I’d expect to find it.
            In any event I still think this has to be the explanation, anonymous, because to me “religious education form” as a phrase doesn’t make sense.
            1. It’s in the Shorter Oxford:
              SCRIPTURE 1.e : Study of the Bible and the Christian religion as a school subject; a lesson in this. E20

              IIRC RE/RI came in when the scope of lessons was expanded to included religions other than Christianity.

              1. Thanks. Still curious that this meaning doesn’t seem to be in Chambers, Collins or ODE.
                1. It’s in the OED:

                  f. The study of the Bible and the Christian religion as a school subject; a scripture lesson.

                  Maybe it’s no longer needed these days so has been dropped from the others.


  12. Came unstuck and had a blank at UNFILIAL, after taking an age to get UGLILY.

    Also had a stupid ‘quatriped’ (yes, really!) at 4ac, thinking that ‘tripe’ was the filler. Doh!

    Some very easy clues, some less so.

    Thanks, as ever, for the helpful blog.

  13. All correct today but spent an age getting the last two – Uglily and Unfilial. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word Uglily before.

    We had Abed (similarly clued) only a week or two back. Quite a coincidence I thought but on second thoughts there are maybe only two words that fit ?B?D (Ibid being another – which we’ve also had recently).

    It’s not long now until the Masters starts. How the leaders would love to score an albatross on the 13th or 15th on Sunday!

    1. Or even the 2nd on Sunday, to take the lead.

      Didn’t do him much good, but (as McText might say).

  14. DNF. 18-ish minutes and I knew I was never getting 1d. I see the word ‘carriage’ in a clue and my little heart sinks and I approach the clue with self-fulfilling expectations of failure. And I just can’t summon up the enthusiasm to learn the names of all the blasted things. That’s the problem: I find carriages really, really dull. Is it just me?
    1. I have a lot of sympathy: I feel the same way about plants. It’s easier for me though: at least I could solve my problem by reading a botanical encyclopaedia. You’d have to read Georgette Heyer [runs for cover].
      1. You just prompted me to seek out a little Georgette Heyer online. Having read it, I take your point. Looks like I’ll be remaining hopeless at carriage clues.
        1. Goergette Heyer online!! No wonder you weren’t impressed. You need to be snuggled up in a cosy armchair with a glass of something (or a nice cup of tea). I’d suggest “The Grand Sophy” to start with.
          1. I’m afraid you’re going to have to sell it harder. I’ll buy the armchair and the glass of something, but the bit of Heyer I sampled had people ‘interjecting’ and ‘rejoindering’ , which makes me grind my teeth. Sorry.
            1. Oh dear! You were unfortunate. She’s not all like that – in fact, she’s not mainly like that. But it’s easy to be put off a writer. I can’t read Hardy after having to wade through “Under the Greenwood Tree” in school. They tell me the other books are better but the damage has been done!
  15. 36 minutes, held up mainly in the NE with QUIN/QUADRUPED and others too easy to mention. COD to SALAMI which was my FOI.
  16. “Uglily” is an alliterative word with a history going back to the 1300s and used, with effect, both by Sir Philip Sidney and by long-time Poet Laureate, Robert Southey
  17. 33.48 today. No quibbles and generally straightforward though I was slow to complete NW with UNFILIAL my last one in. Thanks for blog – I couldn’t see the cryptic for14 across. But now quite clear.
  18. Yesterday’s puzle was a real slog and took me three times as long as today’s. Today’s was also three times more enjoyable! LOI was UNFILIAL, mainly because I had the UNF to start and assumed that “charge” was going to be “fee”. FOI BAROUCHE – thanks to Heyer and Austen. 23 minutes
  19. About 25 minutes, ending with the TRANSACT/SALAMI pair. Like vinyl, I was somewhat dubious about QUIN without the final ‘T’, which is what’s used over here. No real unknowns beyond not knowing what a Tamworth is, and never before seeing UGLILY. Thanks, setter, for the wordplay on those, and thanks to Jimbo for the blog, even though a lot of it has gone over my head. Regards to all.
  20. Nice to work through another one – the one guess being vitreous, having never heard of St. Vitus. Took a long time for the penny to drop on the word play for “led” for stylised – had to come here to find out though I had stylised in as the answer. Yesterday’s puzzle by contrast was just traveling with me all day but I never got going on it – I can see why now after coming here.

  21. Many thanks for today’s blog, particularly explanation of floral.
    Trust yesterdays preperation for the Masters was successful!
    Perhaps strangely we found today far harder than yesterday which attracted so much scorn. We thought yesterdays puzzle also had many more really excellent clues, compared to todays rather journeyman affair. GOLDFINGER was surely a great clue.
    Best wishes
    Mike ans Fay
  22. 6:20 for me – which felt very slow so I expect the fast brigade may have turned in some decent times.

    Jane Austen scores one OED citation for “barouche” and one for “barouche-landau”. But there’s nothing from Georgette Heyer, and nothing from Daisy Ashford (perhaps because she spelled it “baroushe”).

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