Times 25135: Oh Canada?

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 22:27 with the top two entries being the last ones in. I got stuck several times on this one, and often it was just my denseness, but I think I wasn’t the target audience of this crossword. I tried to make a few clues more difficult than they actually were (15 across is a notable example).

Greetings from the past, by the way! I have to set the date forward (it’s 7:44pm as I write this) to get the blog to synch up with the world, which means it won’t actually appear for another 4 or so hours. I will be dead to the world by that point, so any mistakes may take a while to get corrected – check the comments.

Away we go!

Across
1 COCA: At least I think so – CO from company and CAN without the N?
3 LASSA FEVER: A,F in LASS,EVER – got the FEVER part well before the rest of it. Needed the wordplay for this one
9 ALCOPOP: COP in A, LOP(prune)
11 AXILLAE: ILL,A(rmy) in AXE(chopper)
12 HENLEY REGATTA: (ELEGANT,HEARTY)* – an anagram that took forever to unravel, I was sure the second word was THEATRE
14 OFTEN: digital would be OF TEN
15 INGENIOUS: (IN,IGNEOUS)* – very simple anagram, I tried to make it SP in IGNEOUS to make ESPOUSING
17 SUNBURNED: N,BURN(stream) in SUED
19 POSER: double def
21 MATHEMATICIAN: anagram of (A,MAN,ARITHMETIC) minus the R
24 RHENISH: R(ic)H, E(nglishma)N, IS, H
25 HYGIENE: sounds like HI, JEAN
26 DISC,LO(g),SURE
27 our across omission
 
Down
1 COACH,HOUSE: haven’t heard electronic music called HOUSE for a long time
2 COCO(a),NUT: should have cottoned on to this earlier, the idea of a COCONUT SHY evaded me a few years ago
4 APPORTION: (PART,IN,POOR)* without an R. What does this setter have against Rs?
5 SLANG: L in SANG(informed as in gave up information)
6 FLINT(pirate) K,NAPPING: new one to me
7 VOLCANO: reversal of ON,A,CLOV(e)
8 REEK: CREEK without the C. The CREEKS are Muscogee Indians from the Bayou area of the American South
10 PRE-INDUSTRIAL: now this is a charade – P,REIN,DUST,RIAL – whew
13 ASTRINGENT: (STRAIN)* then GENT
16 GODFATHER: O(l)D,F in GATHER(marshall)
18 let this reading be our downly omission of the day, yea verily
20 STIPEND: TIP in SEND(transport)
22 ETHOS: SOH,TE reversed
23 G,RID

26 comments on “Times 25135: Oh Canada?”

  1. So a lot harder than yesterday’s breeze: une autre bouilloire de poissons, as they don’t say in Qebec.

    A few new words, but each well signalled: the KNAPPING and the armpits. Had to look up the Creek (native Americans) and the US Oxford told me:

    “1 a member of a confederacy of native peoples of the southeastern U.S. in the 16th to 19th centuries whose descendants now live mainly in Oklahoma.
    2 the Muskogean language of this confederacy”.

    Natch: it was normal to think “Cree” and wonder about the K?

    Considered the &lit-types for CsOD (12ac & 21ac) but had to settle for VOLCANO for its interesting literal and a vivid surface picture.

    Edited at 2012-04-12 04:22 am (UTC)

  2. Floundered on this one, especially in the NE, needing to resort to aids to get FLINT KNAPPING. (I had considered ‘napping’, as in caught napping – which I was – but decided it wasn’t spelt with a ‘k’ and so dismissed it.) I wasn;t helped by not cottoning onto FLINT despite reading Treasure Island not long ago. Rather liked COCONUT.

  3. Another gentle, sub-20 minute solve perhaps aided by (i) growing up near Brandon/Grimes Graves, the most well-known FLINT KNAPPING centre in England and (ii) for some reason clues which might normally have given me trouble (RHENISH, HYGIENE) springing immediately to mind. Thanks for the blog, George, and putting me right about the location of Creek Indians: memory suggested they originated from further north and were moved south/west in the Indian Removal of 1830.
  4. George, you have a typo at 15ac with the second I omitted from the solution.

    This was a rather slow but steady solve for me that flowed quite tidily around the grid but took 42 minutes to complete.

    One problem I had was at 9ac where I remained determined for far too long that ‘copper’ had to be cluing CU rather than the more straightforward COP; I should have concentrated on the literal here.

    The final hold-ups were at the 11ac / 6dn axis.

    Having eventually spotted Captain Flint as the pirate in question I realised I was looking for an unknown expression and wasted time wondering whether FLINT SNAPPING or FLINT KNAPPING was the more likely answer. Considering FLINT as both pirate and (possibly) King (parrot) I thought I could make a case for either. It didn’t help that ‘snapping’ and ‘knapping’ can be interchangeable in certain contexts.

    Edited at 2012-04-12 06:19 am (UTC)

    1. I had snapping, too, having never knapped a flint myself, so although finished in 20 minutes it was not Orl Korrect. Otherwise an enjoyable puzzle with some fine anagrams.
  5. 19.50 on the clock but with a moronic E for A in LASSA FEVER.
    REEK worried me because I knew the Cree but didn’t know their extended family. Not helped by failing to see where the E came from in AXILLAE for so long – I had already cut my axe at the beginning.
    Having recently returned form the bit of Hampshire where they do a lot of it, FLINT KNAPPING was a delight, though for a while I was going to be grumpy about Cap’n Flint not being a Pirate King. Fine clue and my CoD.
    I was hoping 2d was going to end in -NER (nerd shy of its last letter) so that I could applaud the artifice, but it turned out to be a very good lift and separate instead.
  6. A slowish but enjoyable 38 minutes. I like volcano and often (my last, bewildering solve) very much. Good stuff.
  7. Enjoyed this one, it seemed fair and not so arty-farty as some. 17mins; no new words though the oxters only vaguely remembered. Nearly put ingenuous, had to check the anagrist carefully..
  8. Smooth sailing until the last four: Flint-Knapping, Henley Regatta, Coca and LOI Coach House. I heard coca leaves on the radio yesterday re miners rescued from a copper mine in Peru. Plumped correctly for Flint-Knapping over Flint-Snapping. The definition for Volcano raised a smile, but COD to Often.

    A lot of these words were familiar from previous solves (Numbers, Rhenish, Alcopop, Stipend, Astringent, Poser) which brought Sotira’s comment from Tuesday to mind re this being the sort of crossword that’s easier to solve the more crosswords you’ve solved.

    George – thanks for explaining Reek. I couldn’t figure out the wordplay for that one.


  9. Oops… assumed he was King Flint, so ended up with ‘flint snapping’.

    All others ok, but needed to read blog to understand parsing of ETHOS.

    New words today: RIAL, AXILLAE, CREEK (=Indian tribe).

    Last ones in were COCA and COCONUT, where ‘target of a shy’ misled me for some time.

  10. On the whole an easyish puzzle – about 30 mins for me, but, I now discover, with one mistake. Like Janie, I fell for FLINT-SNAPPING and for the same reason. Lots of 15 ac clues, among which I particularly enjoyed OFTEN, VOLCANO and COCONUT.
  11. 19m. Good standard Times stuff.
    AXILLAE was new to me, and like z8b8d8k I’d cut the E off AXE so struggled a bit with the end of it. Not helped by wanting the Indian to be CREE. And I didn’t know FLINT-KNAPPING. So basically the same problems as everyone else.
  12. An enjoyable 9 minutes – I did think I was never going to get 1a and the first part of 1d but eventually the penny clanged loudly to the floor.
  14. Apparently I got two wrong in my 15:11 but after looking both last night and this morning I still can’t see the errors.

    I knew FLINT KNAPPING from watching Time Team, so it wasn’t that …

    Last in .. RHENISH.

  15. Fooled by King’s possessive and ehtered Flint snapping. Finished in 20 or so minutes otherwise. Liked hygiene and often.

    Enigma

  16. 26 minutes with 1 wrong’un. Can’t see which. I had ingenious at 15a after toying with ingenuous (when he gets round to it George may want to look at his blog which has ingenous). Had to look up the flint thing. Computer was misbehaving plus I was running late so I probably did something stupid. P.S. Apparently I did put ingenuous after all. Blast.

    Edited at 2012-04-12 01:37 pm (UTC)

    1. Thanks, Olivia, for pointing me to one of my two mistakes – I had INGENEOUS. Still can’t find the other.
  18. 42 minutes, with OFTEN my LOI and my COD. Didn’t get PRE-INDUSTRIAL till late, despite listening to Melvyn Bragg in heated argument about it on podcast over lunch, nor MATHEMATICIAN, to my chagrin. A nice clue, despite mathematics being nothing to do with arithmetic. Like Sotira, Time Team was my saviour at FLINT-KNAPPING. All good stuff, VOLCANO special mention.
  19. About 25 minutes, ending with the COCONUT/ALCOPOP crossing, but I too fell for FLINT SNAPPING, thinking Flint was the pirate king all by himself. Oops. Well, my mistake there. Better luck tomorrow. Thanks for the blog, George, and a good, clever, fun puzzle overall, despite my error. Thanks to the setter. Regards to all.
  20. 10:05 for me, but it would have been lot faster if I hadn’t been so damnably tired, as there were plenty of old chestnuts and nothing to hold me up. No complaints, as I was hoping for an easy one.
  21. 27.20 today. Didn’t know the oxters either but now had confidence to trust the cryptic. Improving. COD to FLINT KNAPPING a specialist term I actually knew.
  22. I can’t find anything in favour of ‘marshall’ with two Ls – except as a surname
    1. The (online) OED allows “marshall”, though it marks it as “chiefly U.S.“.

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