Times 25,169

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A very chewy puzzle, clocking in at 28:09 on the club leaderboard (incidentally, it’s lovely when we get a tough puzzle and all the peculiar people who solve the puzzle in the paper version then submit online in lightning times are suddenly absent, so that what you see represents “actual solving time” rather than “typing time”). It’s been a long time since such a challenging puzzle fell into my Tuesday slot, but I’m not complaining: this was top class Times setting at the higher end of the difficulty scale.

Across
1 NEWSPRINT – NEW(College) + SPRINT(=run).
6 ASPIC – A SPICE.
9 DOLMA – DO(=cook) + istanbuL + MA. Mmmm…dolma.
10 COTTON GIN – [OTT in CON] + GIN.
11 ELIZABETH TAYLOR – matrimonY in (BETROTHALZEALI)*. The Hollywood star was such a strong believer in marriage that she went down the aisle eight times with seven men, and threw in a couple of broken engagements for good measure.
13 DIGITISE – DIG IT(=”like that”) + IS + Energy.
14 GOOGOL – GO(=move) + (LOGO)rev. A googol is 1 followed by 100 zeroes. It’s big. Really big.
16 SLAVER – balL in SAVER. For non-sports fans, to nutmeg is to put the ball through a defender’s legs while running past him, a la Stanley Matthews or Lionel Messi (delete according to your generation). Don’t think I’ve seen it used as an analogy in crosswords to indicate that letters should be put inside another word before, but it works for me (especially with this surface reading).
18 VINDALOO – Very (OILANDOxygen)*. One of the dishes of choice for those who like to live dangerously in Indian restaurants. “Burner” indeed.
21 INSECT REPELLENT – IN SECT(braninwashed) + (LEPER)rev. + LENT(=fast).
23 ASCERTAIN – [C.E. + Rites] in A STAIN.
25 BIDET – BIDE + detergenT.
26 EVENT – SEVENTY.
27 ANCESTRAL – (ASCARLETwomaN)*.
 
Down
1 NUDGE – Good in NUDE.
2 WALKING BASS – double/cryptic def. Apparently this need not actually be played on a piano, though it often is. I’m not massively expert on music, but my first thought was “boogie-woogie”, so I wouldn’t quibble with the clue as it stands. Musicologists may differ.
3 PEASANT – PHEASANT.
4 INCREASE – IN + CREASE.
5 TITCHY – Time + ITCHY. I nearly undid my good work by seeing “irritable” and leaping to TETCHY, which is what I would have been if I hadn’t paused long enough to parse the clue properly.
6 AVOCADO – CAD in (0 + OVA)rev. The colour of 1970s bathrooms across the land.
7 PUG – PUGILIST without I LIST(lean).
8 CONTRALTO – CON(servative) + (ART)rev. + Left + TO.
12 LEGAL TENDER – perhaps I can’t see for looking, but I wrote this in without really thinking at the time, and even on reflection can’t see very much cryptic about it. Is it simply that the surface initially appears to suggest that “deposits” is a verb rather than noun? All contributions gratefully received. Thanks to John from L. for being first to enlighten me, it’s E.G. ALT (key) in LENDER. That’s better.
13 DISSIPATE – [1’S SIP] in DATE. Nice use of a less obvious meaning of “see”, i.e. “seeing someone” in the romantic sense.
15 HISPANIC – when the opposite of “her calm” = HIS PANIC.
17 EXCERPT – mahleR in EXCEPT(=but).
19 DELIBES – DELI + BEST.
20 ERRATA – E.R. + (A TAR)rev. Given the lead times of puzzles, I suppose it’s just a coincidence that I heard about this story recently…
22 TOTAL – TOT + A Litre.
24 CUE =”QUEUE” and CUE as in “prompt”.

33 comments on “Times 25,169”

  1. This took me nearly an hour, but it was well worth the effort. The definition of BIDET, when I spotted it, caused me to chuckle out loud.

    12 down also took a while to see. It’s EG ALT in LENDER

  2. Very many thanks tim for a superb blog. A great challenge (thanks to the setter) but too tough for me, notably WALKING BASS, ANCESTRAL and HISPANIC. Even some of those which I had solved, I couldn’t parse fully (e.g. INSECT REPELLENT). The sort of utterly fair puzzle which puts me firmly in my place.
  3. A brilliant puzzle that I was glad, by virtue of luck of the draw, to avoid having to blog. Well done Tim.

    I think 11A is simply superb amongst a collection of real gems. I did wonder if 18A and 25A were in any way related. 30 minutes to solve and many thanks setter.

  4. Chewy indeed! Just under 40 minutes, with the kind of interruptions you can’t complain about because they give the brain a chance to work around these extremely twisty clues.
    Lots to like; HIS PANIC and the behind cleaner particular oddball delights. The disguise for LIZ TAYLOR was almost complete: I had no idea of what I was looking for, even with that Z lurking, until sudden inspiration struck. It was that kind of “spot the definition” challenge throughout.
    CoDs just about everywhere, and in nutmegs a new inclusion indicator, though quite how the L goes through the legs of the goalie I’m not too sure.

    Edited at 2012-05-22 09:54 am (UTC)

  5. A fine crossword Tim, as you say; well blogged!
    The IT error you linked to is simply brilliant. The perpetrator should be working for the crossword club site. When I first heard of it I assumed it was deliberate – disgruntled employee or something – but as there is an actual title I suppose it could be accidental. A fine book for her majesty to give to her great grandchildren..
    Never heard of dolma, but have heard of dolmades, so it seemed plausible
    1. Apologies to John from Lancs – I should have read to the end of his comment beofre posting!
  7. A great puzzle. I spent a long time staring at an empty grid. I read as far as the last down clue before finding one I could answer, CUE. From then on it was a steady solve with lots of eureka moments and a few chuckles. Completed in 2 sessions and 49 minutes. Slow but satisfying
  8. 40 minutes. No DKs. ‘Nutmeg’ with this meaning came up as an answer on Championship day last year and I remembered Andy’s explanation at http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/763517.html

    We had key = ALT only last Friday so it would now seem appropriate to give it a rest for a while. Is that a typo in your revision, Tim? I don’t think there’s anything musical about it.

    A great puzzle with a great laugh at 25ac.

    Edited at 2012-05-22 10:14 am (UTC)


  9. … similar scenario to yesterday’s albeit a little slower. I had all but the BASS of 2dn, so went away. And came back. And still didn’t get it. Well I think I probably discounted BASS as I alphabet-ran to try and find something that vaguely made sense.

    Yes, a good puzzle, with lots of excellent clues. I’ve only just got the cleverness of the ‘behind cleaner’, originally getting only the ‘after’ meaning of ‘behind’.

    DK: COTTON GIN; couldn’t parse: LEGAL TENDER (despite having ALT so recently. Thanks).

    COD: INSECT REPELLENT. Or maybe DIGITISE

  10. 82 minutes, so a similar time to yesterday’s and with two wrong again, annoyingly putting ‘googel’ (‘lego’ as my design), having toyed with ‘golgol’ as I endeavoured to dredge up my vast number, and falling into the ‘tetchy’ trap. The unknown WALKING BASS was the last to fall after the pieces came together for the clever SLAVER. Joint CODS to INSECT REPELLENT and ANCESTRAL. Excellent puzzle.
  11. 25:05 .. a tour de force which shows what a canny setter can work into a simple crossword puzzle. And a fine blog to match (and I agree, Tim, about how nice it is not to see the online leaderboard topped by twenty people clocking four minutes – I still don’t understand why they do that).

    I’m another who laughed out loud at the bidet (which I think is what a bidet is for), but there are too many smashing clues to pick one out.

    Last one in was WALKING BASS, where the piano-specific def. made it that much harder to get. Take five and have some fun with a walking bass and three guys on the piano: Jools and Friends


      1. That’s insane! No explaining that kind of talent. It certainly did brighten my day (even more). I wondered why I didn’t know the name but it’s maybe because he seems to have largely given up music in the 50’s to become a psychologist (a bit like John Major running away from the circus to become an accountant), though I read that he’s been playing again of late.
      2. Is that what they mean by a “walking bass”? I always called it a “boogie” bass. (It’s the only jazz bassline I can play myself)And is it any relation to “stride”?
        1. I believe so, and essentially the same as a stride. The point being (I think) that it’s on the beat and even-paced, just stridin’ or walkin’ along, while the melody/right-hand is syncopated all over the place. It seems to be integral to boogie-woogie, and what you call it probably doesn’t matter a whole lot.
        2. Don’t know about a relation but it’s not stride which involves the left hand leaping rapidly along the keyboard playing notes in the lowest octaves alternating with chords in the higher bass range.

          Edited at 2012-05-22 03:06 pm (UTC)

  12. 24 very enjoyable minutes. Great puzzle.
    As Tim points out a WALKING BASS is not necessarily played on a piano: I associate it more with a bass guitar, unsurprisingly. Nothing wrong with the definition but it took me a while to see it.
    I’m obviously being thick because no-one else has raised it but why is INCREASE “where starch may be found”?
    1. If you do as little ironing as I do, you can be forgiven for not instinctively thinking of the use of spray starch to produce a real knife-edge crease…
      1. Thanks (and to john_from_lancs). I’ve used spray starch but I’m not sure how you’d find starch in a crease. On it, yes, but not in it, unless you were somehow ironing it from the inside, which wouldn’t work.
        I’m just being too literal-minded again, aren’t I?
    2. I took it to mean that when you wanted to fix a crease in a garment when you ironed it, you used starch. I can remember my grandmother using packets of Robin Starch in the 1950s.
  13. 64 mightily perplexed minutes. I second all the comments so far. Simply superb. Liz Taylor was a gem, amongst many a pearl. Well done the setter and Tim too.
  14. Perplexed here too. dnf – didn’t know walking bass and was very dense about parts of the SW corner. Thanks for the very hepful blog.
  15. Slow to get going but it seemed to do itself after a time, sharing the joke. This has the best of Timesian humour, simply leaving other breeds of so-called crossword in the shade. I didn’t know ‘walking bass’ though the music type’s familar enough; thanks to sotira and the Lancastrian for two prime examples. (I won’t forget Sugarchile.)Thankyou setter. (Oh, 40 minutes.)

    Edited at 2012-05-22 04:38 pm (UTC)

  16. All been said above, the best puzzle for ages and well blogged thank you. 30 minutes with vindaloo my LOI, and many smiles, CoD has to be BIDET for its brilliant double use of ‘behind’.
  17. About 30 minutes, ending with WALKING BASS/DIGITISE. I didn’t know what the ?A?S was in the former, and BASS was a toss up based on the ‘singer’ in the clue. On the latter, I was hesitant to equate ‘DIG IT!’ with ‘like that’, but the definition made me overcome my fear. Like others I appreciated the Liz T. clue, the HISPANIC contrast, and also the ‘flies away with this’ bit. But the clear winner is BIDET. Thanks setter and Tim ( and extra thanks for the nutmegging explanation). Regards.
  18. 18:20 for me. I’d probably have enjoyed this more if I hadn’t been feeling so damnably tired, but I just found it a bit of a slog.
  19. 19 minutes, I think it’s all been said, really good puzzle, great deception and wordplay – didn’t know nutmegging but figured it had to be some sort of container indicator.

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