Times 25134: Thou spreadst a table

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 18:53

A bit phased early this morning by the header of the puzzle on the Club site: “The 2012 Times National Crossword Championship Qualifying Puzzle No 2 with full details of how to enter, will appear on Wednesday, April 18. Solution Thursday, April 26. – April 11, 2012”. Some indication of puzzle numbers would have helped. Thanks to Jack for sorting this out. On reflection: I suspect such an easy puzzle wouldn’t be an actual Qualifier.

Very straight solve, with more than a few allusions to foodie culture. Can’t find a Down clue to omit; so two Acrosses today.

Across
 1 DRAINPIPES. Two defs. Drainies were the choice kecks of rockers in the 1950s. Much sitting in hot baths was supposed to shrink them to fit.
 6 ALT,0. The computer key otherwise known as ‘option’. (On a Mac, Opt-0 will give you a degree sign.)
 8 SHRIMPER. H{is}, R{eceipts} inside SIMPER.
 9 MAMMAL. As in ‘Me Mam’ll whack us if am lee-ate’.
10 P(R)AY. Presumably ‘swell (with)’ signals inclusion.
11 LEOPARDESS. Anagram: Dress a Pole.
12 ENTRE(COT)E. Insert: CO{s}T.
14 Omitted. (Mixed bag of plums.)
17 RA,MPS. Burlington House, home of the Royal Academy.
19 DEVELOPER. Two defs.
22 SISTERHOOD. Anagram: dire shoots.
23 Also omitted, if that’s reasonable.
24 KASBAH. K{ing} & BAH, inc A & S{mall}. Cue today’s music.
25 REASCEND. RE (on), C{hine} inside an anagram of ‘Andes’.
26 C(L)UE. The def is ‘This’.
27 S(TEAK)H,OUSE. SH (quiet), OUSE (a river).
Down
 1 DISAPPEAR. Sounds like DIS (or DISS) A PEER.
 2 ABREAST. A{rgosies} inside A,BREST.
 3 POP,U,L,ACE. Wasn’t expecting POP for ‘hurry’.
 4 PAR FOR THE COURSE. PAR{t} and a sound-alike for ‘coarse’.
 5 SI(MI)AN. Ministry of Information, aka spooks.
 6 ARMADILLO. A and D{rug} inside A,RM (Royal Marine=jolly), ILL, O{ld}.
 7 T,RANSOM.
13 REPUTABLE. Anagram: A true pleb.
15 PARTRIDGE. PAGE including RT & RID (deliver, as in ‘Who will rid me …?’)
16 FEED,BACK.
18 ABIGAIL. A,GI (rev) inside BAIL.
20 PLATEAU. ALP (rev), TEA,U (‘you’).
21 OR(CHI)S. Greek letter in {g}ORS{e}. Today’s unknown; Greek for ‘testicle’.

62 comments on “Times 25134: Thou spreadst a table”

  1. I think this is just an ordinary Wednesday puzzle but they are giving us notice of Qualifier 2 after complaints about no notice of Qualifier 1 a couple of weeks ago. Going in via the newspaper the print-out shows the puzzle up today is number 25134 whereas via the Club site when you get to the grid and clues it doesn’t show what number you are looking at.

    Anyway it’s dead easy and I finished it in 20 minutes.

    Edited at 2012-04-11 12:52 am (UTC)

  2. I thought I was hexed when I read Jack’s comment, but I got home in the end in 32 minutes. The bottom half was a lot tougher than the top (excepting TRANSOM – one of those architectural words that seldom stick), with the crossing KASBAH and ORCHIS both unknownish and last in.

    While PARTRIDGE was very neat, I thought 9ac was pretty weak, as it required you to take a dialect word for mother and add another letter. As CS Lewis might have said, one oddity too many. The property magnate held me up as they are known as tycoons or crooks in these parts. Allegedly.

  3. Unlike yesterday’s sorry effort I was onto this setter’s wavelength on reading the first clue and never lost my way. There were no unfamiliar words or meanings and most if not all of the tricks were standard crossword fare. I badly needed this confidence booster so thanks to the setter for providing it. Does anyone remember the comic strip ‘Tug Transom’? I think it used to appear in one of the London evening newspapers.
  4. Overall a gentle sub 20-minute solve but without full understanding of all the wordplay (though answers were ‘obvious’): so particular thanks, mctext, for parsing of DISAPPEAR, ARMADILLO and PARTRIDGE. Have we had drug = D before? I was toying with usual suspects, E and H.
  5. I’m probably missing the obvious, but why “to broadcast” at 23? It looks like a straight
    DD to me, rather than a homophone.
    1. My parsing: def=It’s just. (The answer is FAIR.)
      F for “fine” (pencils, etc.)
      AIR, broadcast.
  6. Typo at 25A McText C(hine) not C(limb)

    Very easy puzzle and no real talking points – 15 minutes to solve

  7. 9.51 on the club timer, including the inevitable retypes and several seconds checking for the usual typos, so this was pretty easy. Unlike yesterday’s, though, this had a certain charm and a proper Times feel.
    I’d have spelt KASBAH with a C, and had to assume ORCHIS was a proper variant.
    Award for the dodgiest soundzabitlike to MAMMAL. Cod to REPUTABLE, not difficult but a rather pleasing anagram.

    Edited at 2012-04-11 07:49 am (UTC)

  8. No major difficulties today with the only hold-ups in the bottom right corner: Partridge, Steakhouse, Plateau and LOI Feedback. Orchis was a new word for me.

    I liked Mammal (not dodgy at all z8b8d8k!), Bail for “cricketer’s bar” and Par For The Course, two days post-the Masters.

    Leopardess reminded that some “feminine” nouns seem to be dying out, e.g. nowadays you hear actresses called actors and heroines called heroes. Shame.

    1. My feeling is that common sense will prevail and attempts to proscribe feminine endings on the grounds of ‘semantic derogation’ will founder on the rock of popular usage. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in politially correct California have held out, which must be a good sign.
      1. I do hope you’re correct. What nonsense all of that is. We currently have a lady mayor and I’m pleased to see that her husband has resisted moves to tag him as mayoress.
  9. Back after a few days in the communications wilderness: no mobile phone signal or internet access. This is what happens when you spend time in remote parts of the world so be warned if you too are planning a trip to Wiltshire.
    13 minutes for this, lots going straight in from definition and a pause at the end over KASBAH/ORCHIS.
    1. Yes, Wilts is best avoided – come to Dorset, much more civilized and better ale

      Edited at 2012-04-11 07:41 am (UTC)

      2. Can’t let this pass unchallenged,Jimbo, as an adopted moonraker. For my palate wadsworth ales (especially 6X) are as good as they come.
  10. Coincidentally, I was also singing The King of Love My Shepherd is to myself, not brought on by the food references but by the phrase “My ransomed soul He leadeth” after I filled in 7.

    The hymn also contains the line “O what transport of delight”, which has set me humming Flanders and Swann again.

    About 25 minutes, after a self inflicted delay brought about by carelessly writing in ORCHID instead of ORCHIS.

      1. Thanks for that, Jack. It’s a delightful little song, and one that I can’t recall previously hearing.
        1. Sorry, I never opened it as the Clash is NOT my scene (as you probably might have guessed!).
  11. Very easy one this, 12mins or so. I too would usually spell it casbah, and I note that the Clash would too.. thanks for the link mc – almost a day off for you, eh? 🙂
  12. 21 minutes, held back from an increasingly rare sub-20 by the kasbah/orchis cross. Funny word that, abigail; crossword usage makes it almost normal yet I wonder when it was last normally used?
      1. Are you a not-so-closet Heyer fan Jerry? I outed myself, as did Falooker, many puzzles ago. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one with the c in kasbah. It’s what our album cover had back in the days of flaming youth. 16 minutes after switching to k just in time.
        1. Georgette Heyer is an interesting and highly competent and meticulous author, whose subject matter tends to leave her sadly neglected by approx. half the population, ie men. Several of her books (such as An Infamous Army) are recognised as truly classic texts; in addition, she has probably helped me solve more crosswords than anyone else I’ve read!
          So, no closet for me Olivia 🙂
          1. Amen to that. Her account of Waterloo in Infamous Army is a tour de force, far out-classing Thackeray.
            1. I recently ploughed through Henry Esmond. It took me more than half the book to get orientated. He really was a lazy author!
              1. Vanity Fair is one of my favourite books. I’ve read it several times and it is certainly helpful with crosswords!
                1. Agreed – he was better suited to story-telling than he was to the rigours of historical fiction.
            2. It’s the hilarious bits that I like best. When I seriously need cheering up I reread the last chapter of “The Grand Sophy”. The timing reminds me of “Noises Off”. The entries and exits are the stuff of high farce.
      2. Interesting how often the lady comes up, as above. My mother read her again and again chain-smokingly (as it were), which is maybe why I’ve yet to read a page. But while historical fiction usage has its own normality it aint the sort I meant.

        Edited at 2012-04-11 12:45 pm (UTC)

  13. 33 minutes. I would have been faster but my brain was doing its slow loris impersonation, which it now has pretty much down pat. Don’t know how long I stared at PARTRIDGE thinking “How does that work, then?” Speaking of literary sources of crossword knowledge, the Casbah (sic) was very familiar to me from Bugs Bunny cartoons, where “Come with me to ze casbah” was a catch phrase. The armadillo can’t be a coincidence, can it, given the one in the Clash clip? COD to the property manager.
  14. Just crept over the 20 minute mark, but very straightforward. My instinct would have been for CASBAH, but the wordplay meant it had to be a K here. I hadn’t heard of ORCHIS, and I was debating between that and ORPHIS at the end, but luckily went for the right one because of the similarity to ORCHID.
  15. 7 minutes for me. Some nice misleads – because of the checking letters I did spend a while trying to find something that went with xxxbridge for 15d. Do you think our setter had just had a steak supper before he sat down to clue this one??
  16. Easy today, 17 minutes, of which 4 or 5 were spent getting STEAKHOUSE and an S on the end of ORCHI-. ‘Drainpipes’ must be the easiest ever 10 letter clue in The Times?
  17. I found Monday’s puzzle easier than this, but maybe I’m just having a bad crossword day. I would never have got DRAINPIPES, what does this have to do with cat burglary?
  18. Said cat burglars tend to don black gear and then shinny up drainpipes before breaking and entering.
    1. Thanks, I’ve never heard of that term.

      Edited at 2012-04-11 03:49 pm (UTC)

  19. Re 16 down
    Could someone please explain “feed” = “paid” – I just can’t see the
    connection.
    Thanks, David S.
  20. 28 minutes so on recent performance a relative stroll in the park. Thanks for blog which explained the cryptics I was puzzled by. COD to STEAKHOUSE for the elegant surface.
  21. I came back to this puzzle after a weekend away. A nice easy one. 20 minutes and nothing to comment about.
  22. Excellent timing on having a straightforward crossword as I was solving this with a recent convert looking on over my shoulder. Though I did mess up the pipes and put in STOVEPIPES at the start. Should have remembered my Mighty Boosh…
  23. Could someone please explain “paid” = “feed” – I can’t see the connection.
    Thanks. David S.
    1. One who earns a fee such as a solicitor is therefore feed and hence paid for their labours.
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