Times 25138 – Ignorance is no excuse!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 35 Minutes

Music: Mozart, Violin Concerti #1 & #4, Grumiaux/Davis/LSO

I would have been quicker, perhaps, but was held back at the end by ignorance. I was not familiar with ‘Oersted’, ‘siskin’, ‘nearside’, and ‘freesia’, and

had to get them laboriously from the cryptics.

Other than that, this was a rather straightforward puzzle. I filled in the whole right-hand side in less than ten minutes, only to draw a blank for a bit on the left half, as I had only ‘aggro’, my first answer, in an otherwise vacant area.

Across
1 SISKIN, IS backwards + SKIN. An easy clue if you’ve heard of the bird.
4 CRACKS UP, CRACK + SUP
10 FREESIA, FREE + SIA[m]. These seem to be alarmingly common for a flower I never heard of. I’ll have to stick to rivers.
11 PUNJABI, P[rinceton] + UN(JAB)I. Lift and separate, of course.
12 YUAN, Y[o]U [e]A[r]N.
13 STRIPLINGS, TRIPLING inside of S[chool]S.
15 CHILDLIKE, CHIL(D)L + IKE. I spotted ‘Ike’ early, but still took a while to figure this one out.
16 Omitted!
18 AGGRO, [w]A(GG)[r]R[i]O[r].
19 OBLIVIOUS, OB(LI)VIOUS, where I was oblivious to the cryptic.
21 PAGE TURNER, P[rado] + AGE + TURNER. I couldn’t make ‘page three’ work!
23 Omitted!
26 OPULENT, OPU[s] + LEN + T[rucks].
27 EMOTION, anagram of OMIT ONE. Another cryptic I didn’t see at the time.
28 NEARSIDE, anagram of IN RED SEA. A UK-centric expression I didn’t quite follow, although this must be the answer.
29 BADGER, BADGE + R. Not omitted because I still fail to see this quickly, despite it being a cryptic chestnut.
 
Down
1 SOFTY, OFT in S[leep]Y.
2 SEESAWING, SEES + A + WING, where you have to lift and separate ‘a fly’. I thought of the answer immediately, but couldn’t justify it.
3 ILSA, hidden word, my last in, not understanding the literal.
5 REPRISE, REP + RISE, where the literal points the musical usage, e.g. the recapitulation in sonata form.
6 CONCLUSIVE, anagram of VICE-CONSUL.
7 SPAWN, S(P)AWN. A bit loose on the insertion indicator, the idea being ‘that has ‘cut’ out[side]’.
8 PRIESTESS, anagram of STEPSIS[t]ER.
9 MAI TAI, MAI[n]TAI[n], a witty clue, but very easy.
14 ADROITNESS, A DR(OITN, anagrm of INTO)ESS. I nearly put ‘adoitless’, thinking the literal was ‘without finesse’, but was saved by the cryptic.
15 CLAMPDOWN, C[ambridge] + LAMP + DOWN.
17 BROKERING, BROKE + RING.
19 OERSTED, O(ERST)ED, i.e. the Oxford English Dictionary. I never heard of this, but the cryptic hands it to you.
20 LIEDER, sounds like LEADER. This is a UK-centric term; in the US, the principal violinist usually called the concertmaster.
22 GOUDA, GO(U[nited] D[airies])A.
24 MANOR, MA(N)OR[i]. With a glance, perhaps, at the UK police slang term.
25 Omitted!

36 comments on “Times 25138 – Ignorance is no excuse!”

  1. Made a meal of this I’m afraid; with the high numbered answers going in last — probably because the (surely?) unnecessary notice about the Qual Puzzle shoves them over on to a second page. (If they could push them to the right margin and/or drop the font size, all would be better.)

    So my last in were GERM and MANOR (23/24) — not as easy as they should have been. Liked the constructions for PUNJABI and PAGE-TURNER. (The latter quite apt, given my initial comment?) I did wonder if 15dn was a reference to the recent hold-up in the boat race.

    Edited at 2012-04-16 02:22 am (UTC)

    1. One might have expected they’d have sorted this out after it has been up for 6 days, but of course we must remember this is the Times Crossword Club we are dealing with. Even more annoying than pushing things onto a second page is the absence of the puzzle number.
  2. Similar story to our blogger but at twice the time, and some – 82 minutes, so more Mahler than Mozart for me. Last in the unknown OERSTED, which I was actually rather pleased with myself for getting, as, sadly, the cryptic was particularly stingy in handing it to me. COD to FREESIA or maybe SEESAWING.

    Edited at 2012-04-16 04:52 am (UTC)

  3. “… where you have to lift and separate ‘a fly’” (blog). Don’t quite understand this. A + WING (fly, verb) after SEES (gets)??
  4. I made heavy weather of this too and indeed I was unable to finish without resort to aids for 19 and 9 (so much for the latter being very easy, vinyl1!). I’ve never knowingly met either before but probably my memory is at fault.

    As one of the few people over the age of 50 who has never seen the film ‘Casablanca’ I didn’t actually know the ILSA reference but I noticed the answer lurking in the shadows of the clue.

    I really liked the Sleepy Hollow device at 1dn.

    Edited at 2012-04-16 05:28 am (UTC)

    1. I believe there’s a society for those who have never seen and have no intention of seeing The Sound of Music, and I’ll happily sign up for that. But I beg you to give Casablanca a chance. Of all the characters from the movies, Rick is the one I’d most like to be, particularly opposite Ingrid Bergman (playing Ilsa, whose name I’d completely forgotten!) at her most stunning. There’s a terrific supporting cast too: Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, S. Z. “Cuddles” Sakall, … Sheer bliss for an old romantic like me 🙂
      1. You make a good case, Tony, but the trouble is I can’t stand Bogart. Incidentally, I’ve never seen ‘Citizen Kane’ either although I did start on it a couple of times and gave up. Can’t stand Orson Welles, you see, and he ruined ‘The Third Man’ for me although I did get through that one.

        Edited at 2012-04-16 11:11 pm (UTC)

        1. Of course, Welles doesn’t appear until 65 minutes into the film and even then his shadow is played by the assistant director wearing a coat hanger. Agree that The Third Man is vastly over-rated. You ought to watch Casablanca, ‘though, just to see how many bits you already knew from other, later films!
  5. 19 minutes, the last two going through the alphabet for OERSTED – “former” is EX, isn’t it?
    Many thanks for splitting PUNJABI the right way: I was almost convinced that we had find the word and add it to the anagram mix, as the N and I were already available as “in”. The process quite blinded me to the obvious UNI rather than just U.
    Many fine, chewy clues here, SOFTY for me the pick of the bunch. MAI TAI was cute too, especially because cocktail names are indeed eminently forgettable.
  6. 25m, of which well over 10 on 19dn. I’ve never heard of OERSTED and “erst” wasn’t exactly the first thing that sprang to mind. So the cryptic didn’t so much hand it to me as hide it down the back of the sofa.
    I was held up by questioning the T from 26ac. OPULENT means “rich”, and “loaded” means “rich”, but… “that Rockefeller is absolutely opulent”?
    SISKIN also unknown, and I’d forgotten ILSA, so a little bit of doubt in the NW.

    Edited at 2012-04-16 08:03 am (UTC)

  7. Having been beaten about the head with Brown’s Textbook of Physics (complete edition) I knew all those pre-SI units such as OERSTED and look forward to the future inclusion of gauss and gilbert! It was the cocktail that took me forever to see.

    Also bought a few dummies, some self invented. For example, I was convinced that 15 across ended in AL as “cool president “was surely a reference to “Cool Cal”. There are definite dangers in carrying round too much mental clutter, aren’t there?

    Also wanted 6 down to be PERSUASIVE, as I thought the “a” in the clue must be “per”. Only just seen what the “a” is doing there.

    All in all a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, which shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did (55 minutes); but it’s amazing how Time Goes By when you’re enjoying yourself.

  8. Enjoyed this one a lot, just the right level of difficulty for me to finish it correctly, with a few guesses, and lots of mental untangling.

    LOI: OERSTED (from wordplay, natch!)

  9. Our friends abroad should remember we drive on the left!

    I’d done a course on electrical engineering, so remembered OERSTED, but didn’t remember ILSA (thought she was Elsa, so hidden put me right). Didn’t know MAI TAI, so had to resort to an aid.

  10. 30/32 today with the unknowns Ilsa and Oersted missing. The “place” meaning of “manor” was new.

    Re Ilsa: am baffled how “comprehends” can indicate the hidden word.

    1. Chambers offers to comprise or include as a meaning of comprehend.

      Manor: you have obviously never watched Dixon of Dock Green!

      1. Thanks John. I’ve never watched Dixon of Dock Green – before my time!
    2. According to ODE (online), ‘comprehend’ can have the formal meaning of ‘include, comprise, or encompass’.
  11. 25 minutes for me – the longest struggle with ILSA until the checking letters made some long lost memory come to the front of my brain – I am another ‘over 50’ who hasn’t watched Casablanca either.
  12. I was bang on the wavelength here and done in 10 minutes, SISKIN the only one that went in from wordplay alone. Count me in as one who learned Physics in the 80s from 60s textbooks and had the OERSTED filed away.
  13. Steady for 28 minutes with only 19d to go and that took 8 minutes to reach a guess that happened to be right, based on something having to be in oed. Mostly enjoyable with my COD to SISKIN for its neatness. Slight query with 11a and the order of the cryptic but probably just me not seeing it! Thanks for the blog.
  14. The usual typo (adriotness/aggri) messed up my 19:37.

    I thought there was some lovely stuff in here – really good surface readings all over the place, SOFTY being the pick for me.

    Last in: OERSTED, which I’ll admit to Googling before hitting ‘submit’. I quite enjoyed physics at school but little of it seems to have stayed with me (Fact Retention = Interest Level + No. of Times hit over head with Textbook / Passage of Time2)

  15. 42 minutes, slow down the right and much slower down the left. Like most, Oersted was a complete unknown, despite doing Physics a long time ago, so far back that magnetism obviously hadn’t been invented. I enjoyed this one in spite of myself. COD to SOFTY over STRIPLING.
  16. Pleasant Monday outing, not hard but well crafted generally. I liked 23ac in particular, very smooth clue that.
    Nice to see the increasingly obligatory token scientist appearing. (no jimbo today?)
    However I thought 1ac had slightly dodgy word order.. surplus “to?” – still, solved it OK so no sweat.
    1. Chambers has ‘hide’ as a verb meaning ‘to skin’ so I don’t think ‘to’ is surplus. The word order is still a bit odd though I think it works at a stretch.

      Edited at 2012-04-16 04:12 pm (UTC)

      1. Is this not our old friend “to” as in “next to”; nose to the grindstone etc
  17. All in quite quickly but I still am not sure on the omitted 25d (this is usual for me!). OERSTED was not a problem and the only other struggle was ISLA. Like others I thought that MAI TAI was great. Thanks to all concerned – can someone put me out of my misery please?
      1. D’OH! – Why do I always miss the easy ones?!. I couldn’t see past TODA(y) and STILL managed to miss it. What a numpty!.
        Many thanks Jackkt.
  18. Well, I was on the wavelength today, and breezed through in 15 minutes. I agree with vinyl that the cryptic hands you my only unknown, the OERSTED. I am familiar with the cocktail and the SISKIN. Gnomethang, 25D is SOFA, i.e., ‘so far’ missing the ‘r’, so ‘incomplete’. I found this a clever if (to me) on the easier side of the norm, and appreciating the clever ones at GERM, SOFTY, YUAN, PUNJABI, MAI TAI, SISKIN and the aforesiad SOFA. Regards to all.
  19. Amusingly this is the second Casablanca reference today. The Nina in the Concise crossword was “As Time Goes By”. Enjoyed this puzzle today but a few new words to me (oersted for one!). Felicity TT
  20. hi,
    first post to this site and was intrigued by the omitted clues. they seemed to be the easiest to solve and i wondered whether they were chosen at random or by the difficulty encountered in the person solving?
    1. And more often than not omissions will include hidden answers or a three-letter word.
  21. 7:35 for me – relieved to have an easy puzzle as I still haven’t recovered from last week, and this week looks like being even worse!

    No sign of dorsetjimbo – perhaps he’s too depressed by the number of people who had difficulty with OERSTED. I was glad of the wordplay for two answers: MAI TAI (I’m extremely ignorant of food and drink generally, and only vaguely recalled this one) and ILSA (despite Casablanca being my absolutely favourite film of all time).

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