Times 25180 – Legless and lying down

Author   kororarekaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 35 minutes

I’m afraid I made heavy weather of this relatively straightforward well-crafted puzzle, rejecting many a first thought which retrospectively proved to be correct. I blame the holiday sprit (sic) I took on board. It’s Foundation Day (or Pancake Day as we like to call it) here in Western Australia and of course there was all that pageantry on the Thames last night. It makes one proud to have somebody else’s head of state to call one’s own. I thought there might be some reference to the Diamond Jubilee in this puzzle but I can find none, unless you count “rock” at 12ac and “Queen” at 26ac. Let the festivities commence!

Across
1 SUE around PIN = SUPINE, that’s one rejected first thought.
4 OFFERS attached to C for Conservative = COFFERS
9 lEAVES
10 OR reversed + CHESTER = ROCHESTER
11 (WEEK-LONG)* around D for daughter = KNOWLEDGE. I’m not sure if “acquired” is part of the definition or part of the containicator
12 H for hard in CERT = CHERT. You’d no doubt be familiar with the great chert/chalcedony/flint controversy.
13 DRAMa
14 COMPLEMENT sounds like “compliment”
18 MINIM + A-LIST = MINIMALIST; another for the Salon des Refusés au Début
20 plAIN Understanable = AINU, a complete unknown to me, although it looks like it could be a NY Times cliché with all those vowels
23 I might omit this one, deliberately and homophonically.
24 BRICKYARD = DRAB reversed around RICKY
25 CHARYBDIS = CHARY B for bishop preceding the City of DIS from the Divine Comedy. Charybdis was a hazardous shipping metaphor.
26 VIP + ER = VIPER
27 AUDITOR = A + Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) + TORy. Here’s a list of DI’s; the ones that are U are often non-U.
28 OYSTER, a cryptic definition
Down
1 (KIDS’ HOME)* around H for hearts = SHEIKHDOM
2 PAVLOV + A = PAVLOVA. A great trans-Tasman argument rages about who can claim this as there own, but if you’re ever in Adelaide, don’t make the mistake of ordering a pie floater thinking you’re in for a treat.
3 NO for number + I in SLY = NOSILY, which for some reason gave me pause for too much thought.
4 CACHEt, another which first came to mind but not to pen.
5 FLETCHER = F for female + T inside LECHER, with stop indicating insertion rather than encirclement in this example.
6 EXTREME = EX for old + TREE around M for motorway; the definition being “last”
7 Deliberately omitted (see preamble).
8 CRUDE OIL = COIL for wind around RUDE. Hand up those who thought gas would be involved?
15 PUSHIEST = SHIES for attempts (not tries) in PUT
16 THUNDERER = (RUDER, THEN)*
17 (MAY THE)* + ST for stone = AMETHYST, for a smooth self referential whatsit. Not a diamond in sight.
19 DRAG + GIN for spirit (again with that spirit) all reversed = NIGGARD, a word which can draw sharp intakes of breath if dropped into casual conversation.
21 IN A SPOT = I NOT for “one not” containing ASP; the “managing” being part of the surroundication
22 SKIVVY = SKIVe + VerY.
23 MO for “a bit of time” next to CHA for drink = MOCHA, another perfectly sound first thought rejected.
24 BADER = BA for British Airways on top of DER, being German for the. The definition is “he piloted”, a reference to WWII flying ace Douglas Bader, involved in several “bad shows” in his eventful life.

28 comments on “Times 25180 – Legless and lying down”

  1. 38 minutes, but a careless ‘compliment’ at 14; doing this online this morning before leaving home meant I didn’t have to manually scrub out the ‘e’ of FLETCHER, so I got that wrong too. The perils of a virtual solve.

    The PC crowd are likely to have a field day with NIGGARD in the concise and Bader, whose dog was famously called ‘Nigger’, in the cryptic. Only when Kenneth More owned him, mind; the new bloke gave him a new name.

  2. A very good puzzle I thought. Left me wondering how many possibilities there are for IN A ???? (21dn). Be interesting to know the candidates if anyone has an app to work it out.

    Lasts in were 1ac/3dn. As they said when the thieves took the port-a-loos from the local cop shop: “We have nothing to go on”.

    And on today’s theme … last night on the telly there was the barge rubbish on one channel and the fire-bombing of Dresden on the other. So 24dn left me with (to mix a metaphor and some languages) der schlechte Geschmack eines Traums.

    1. I watched a bit on the Internet over my daughter’s shoulder and was heartened to see the ‘Merseyside Congratulates Her Majesty’ banner on their barge, which off course had been nicked…
    2. OneLook returns 18 examples of IN A ????, but not all appear bona fide, and they omit IN A IDOF and IN A WEOF. IN A FANG and IN A BAKE appear genuine (the latter is in Ulysses) but the only example for IN A GOOD is IN A GOOD SPOT, which possibly disqualifies it. Readers are invited to submit their own examples for IN A YUGO.
  3. Well I found this a tough one. It took me 64 minutes, 3 of which had passed before I managed to write in my first answer, VIPER at 26ac. I solved steadily but very slowly throughout, so it wasn’t a case of suddenly running out of steam and getting stuck on the last few answers.

    My unknowns today were CHERT and AINU which came up 11 months ago and I claimed it as unknown then. I take some solace from it being clued as a people on that occasion and as a language this time.

    The monster at 25ac gave me a problem because I was trying to think of the monster hound that guarded the gates of hell. It took me ages to remember its name, Cerberus, and rule it out. Much time also lost by thinking TRIES for SHIES at 15dn.

    I liked the clue to BADER but ‘Nigger’ belonged to Wing Commander Guy Gibson of the Dam Busters played by Richard Todd in the film.

    Edited at 2012-06-04 05:39 am (UTC)

    1. I should have realised it wasn’t Bader – the poor dog wouldn’t have got much exercise.
  4. I too was delayed a little by nosily, though seeing it soon enough; an odd definition. A bit surprised also by ‘number on board’ in 14. I’d say acquired is part of a neat definition in 11. 22 minutes for an unexceptional puzzle – I was expecting a stream of vessels. Incidentally the Sunday Times Concise yesterday in one respect is an improbable rarity.
  5. 14 minutes (wavelength, perhaps, or just expecting it to be a bank holiday benign), taking most time over the IN A SPOT/OYSTER crossing, where I had at least one of the alternatives for a while in SPIN. The latter felt more likely, despite the extreme mental gymnastics needed to fit the clue, but oddly isn’t in Chambers.
    AINU unremembered but sat in an obvious included place, and entered on the basis that any combination of letters is a language somewhere in this infinite universe.
    The cryptic saved me from entering MOCCA as the drink, which I have done before: looks better going down rather than across.
    CoD to FLETCHER for the well disguised lift and separate. There’s a joke in there somewhere connected to 23ac – If the Christian females won’t, the widows might.
    1. That’s not on OneLook’s list either. Nor is IN A FLAP, for that matter. So much for OneLook’s capabilities.
  6. What I didn’t know (CHERT, AINU) was easily gettable from the wordplay. LOI: NOSILY – wordplay clear but definition (presumably ‘using techniques to pry’) didn’t seem quite right (it doesn’t strike me as an adverbial phrase). Thanks for the blog, koro.
  7. Gentle stroll of a puzzle with little to excite or irritate. A bland 20 minutes. Liked the clue to BADER.
  8. 11 and a half minutes for a solid unremarkable puzzle. If you’ve been doing these for as many years as some of us don’t care to remember, you probably know CHERT and AINU; if you haven’t, as suggested already, they weren’t impossible to deduce.

    Like most England cricket fans, I enjoyed the occasional singing of “God Save Your Queen” during the last Ashes tour down under 🙂

    1. And the tour before, and the tour before that, etc. Had a good laugh the first sixty or seventy times I heard it.
      They also used to sing (to the tune of “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands”) “We get three dollars to our pound”. Presume that one will be re-written for the next tour.
      1. Funnily enough, when I think about those earlier tours (well, let’s be honest, all of them until we get back to 1986/87) my memory becomes as bad as a Murdoch. Five-nil? I think I heard someone say that once, but can’t recollect it myself.

        And the Barmy Army have never heard the phrase “Less is more”, have they. All things considered, I think they’ve added to the gaiety of nations, but I prefer them when I can turn the volume down on them after a while…

        1. Don’t worry about the five-nil mate, I can assure you that two-one hurts just as much. Possibly more!
  9. 15 mins for most of it and then a further 15 sorting out the NE corner. I will admit to many years of crossword solving but don’t remember CHERT.
  10. Wot? No Jubilee Nina? Poor do! We had one for the Royal Wedding. There are quite a few ERs in the puzzle today, but not an exceptional number.

    Don’t tell me the crossword editorship has been taken over by one of those po-faced republicans I saw protesting in London yesterday. (Raises flag, puts on tin hat and stands ready to repel boarders.)

  11. 13:32 .. after a lovely day of watching royals and boats (I’m rather fond of both). Perhaps a Jubilee Nina will appear in Tuesday’s puzzle, although I suppose the actual anniversary was June 2nd.

    Count me as another who didn’t recall encountering CHERT before.

  12. I enjoyed this one and had no real problem with it, until three clues remained in the NE. I got CHERT from the blog, which allowed me to get/guess FLETCHER, which in turn allowed me to see COMPLEMENT and finish the puzzle.

    A lot of unknows today (but not as many as last Saturday’s): (RO)CHESTER, CHERT, UDI, AINU, FLETCHER, SPRIT, SKIVE/SKIVVY, and BADER.

    Loved EAVES for the surface, but there were a lot of nice clues today.

  13. One error in an otherwise excellent blog, Koro. This year for the first time it’s Western Australia Day, not Foundation Day. Not that it added much to the excitement of the occasion.
    1. To be honest, I had no idea it was a holiday until yesterday. Still, the extra public holiday is just one of the perks of living in the West – until Colin leads us into secession and we have to forego Australia Day.
  14. 13 minutes late last night, no major hold-ups, though CHARYBDIS to me is better known as a crossword setter (hi Charybdis, if you’re reading the thread).
  15. About 35 minutes, ending with CHARBYDIS, which I sorta remembered but couldn’t figure out how to spell, especially as I had already misspelled AMETHYST. That mishap required straightening out to finish, but I was happy to do so without aids. I knew of CHERT, AINU, but not Mr. BADER, although his runway lights were clearly lit by the wordplay. COD to FLETCHER, and regards to all.
    1. BADER comes up pretty regularly, last making an appearance in No. 24,613 (11 August 2010) as the answer to the rather neat clue “World War II hero ordered to join resistance (5)” – when someone called kevin_from_ny (an impostor?) appeared to have no problem with him!

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