Times 25,205

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
13:42 on the Club timer for a solid middle of the road Times puzzle. I don’t think there’s much here in terms of knowledge or clueing that will be unfamiliar to moderately experienced solvers. [edit] In fact, having written the blog, I wonder if I actually made slightly heavy weather of this puzzle; but as usual, only time will tell.

Across
1 SILVER MEDAL – i.e. what the runner-up receives; I made a mess of things initially by going with SECOND PLACE – a case of right idea, wrong answer, which stopped me getting off to a good start with the down clues from the top.
7 HOB – Heat Of Battle.
9 BONAPARTE – A PART in BONE. My first thought was of “Dad’s Army”, in which ARP Warden Hodges used to call Captain Mainwaring “Napoleon” when he thought he was getting above himself (which was always). This usage seems to explain the “so-called” in the clue, i.e. the “Napoleon” in question is the generic term for a metaphorical dictator rather than the man himself.
10 BIZET – BIZ (such an acceptable abbreviation for “business” these days that it’s a top level domain on the internet) + ET (French for “and”).
11 GUNBOAT – [“YOU”, N.B.] in GO AT.
12 LITERAL – LITER (U.S. version of LITRE) + A Large. The sort of typographical error which involves a misplaced letter, and as such regularly finds its way into my solving and blogging.
13 ASSAY – A Southern SAY.
15 RESERVOIR – (RIVERROSE)*.
17 DEVASTATE – (SAVED)rev. + TATE (in his capacity as founder of the eponymous gallery).
19 BUSBY – Bishop in BUSY; nice definition in “headgear for (military) service”. Lots of soldiers have worn a busby through history, and it should not be confused with a bearskin.
20 ARRIVAL – A Run + RIVAL.
22 DOLEFUL – DOLE(=assistance) + (FLU)*.
24 TALON – specialisT ALONe, the hobby being the hawk rather than any pastime.
25 ANALOGIES – (ALINEGOAS)*.
27 RAY – double def.
28 HEARTBROKEN – (OTHERBANKER)*.
 
Down
1 SOB – double def.; in the second one, the use of initials presumably makes it polite enough to be used in the crossword, where I suspect the use of the full version might be more controversial.
2 LENIN – Left + (NINE)rev.
3 EUPHONY – EUropean + PHONY.
4 MORATORIA – ORATOR in (AIM)rev.
5 DWELL – DO WELL without the 0.
6 LOBSTER – LOB (the “shot high in air” should have come straight to anyone who’s been watching Wimbledon) + STERN.
7 HAZARDOUS – [A,Z in HARD] + OUST.
8 BATTLE ROYAL – [A Time] in (TOLERABLY)*; there seemed to be a bit too much clueing going on at first, but it parses fine as “make an anagram of TOLERABLY, then add A,T – but not at the start of the word.”
11 GRANDMASTER – double def. one from the world of chess. No mention of Grandmaster Flash.
14 SEVERALLY – EVER(=invariably) inside Son and ALLY. Quite a specialist (legal) synonym for “respectively” as the definition, but anyone who’s ever signed up for a tenancy or mortgage with a partner will have come across the concept of “joint and several liability“.
16 STEADFAST – (TASTEFADS)*.
18 SEVENTH – EVENT in SH; I was deceived into searching for an evening-related answer, when it was much simpler than that.
19 BALFOUR – (LAB)rev. + FOUR(cricketing boundary); PM in the early 20th century, though possibly better remembered for his Declaration when he was Foreign Secretary.
21 LLAMA – (A MALL)rev.
23 FRISK – Fine RISK.
26 SIN – 1 in South,North, the contract bridge partners.

26 comments on “Times 25,205”

  1. Done online at work as the printer was kaput and my thick fingers managed to write ‘euphhny’ which lead to a puzzled ‘gunshot’ at 11ac. Pretty simple offering, I thought, completed – after a fashion – in 26 minutes.

    The question mark at 11dn is especially needful given the nature and history of such groups as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.

  2. 34 minutes for this one. Most of it went in easily enough but I had a slight problem finishing off in the NW corner with 3, 1d, 9 and 4 having hastily bunged in SOS at 1d.
  3. 20 minutes here, held up by cricket trying to find some play in the first clue. Good gentle going overall.
  4. Hm. So I seem to have been given a magic 3-year subscription to Times+ that just ended Monday. I thought it was too good to be true.

    Unfortunately, I tried to buy a subscription to the Crossword Club and I’m getting declined… is this an out-of-UK problem? Sigh.

    1. Times subscriptions usually involve a phone call in my experience. If you’re abroad and unable to ring you can email for assistance to [email protected]. This for both the newspaper and the Crossword Club.

      Edited at 2012-07-03 08:01 am (UTC)

    2. As jackkt says, I’d strongly recommend calling. I’ve had some very tedious problems with the site recently (really, don’t ask) and only got them sorted out by speaking to someone. Emailed queries have a very good chance of being ignored.
  5. Oh no … two easy ones in the two days prior to my next blog! I tremble.

    Managed SECOND PRIZE (not Tim’s PLACE) at 1ac and immediately knew it was wrong on inspection of the corresponding downs.

    Wondered about the “so-called” at 9ac, so thanks for the explanation Tim. Must mentally file this alongside “Waterloo” under specifics-become-generics.

    24ac: saw it was bird; the Australian Hobby in full prey mode early in the morning is one of my best ever sights.

    LENIN: he did indeed orate in the square on arrival at the Finland Station. Being short, he had to shin up a lighting pole. Pulling out his banjolele, he sang “I’m Lenin on the lampost at the corner of the street”.

    This is one of the reasons for him awarding the Lenin Medal to G. Formby. (Honest, he did!)

    Edited at 2012-07-03 06:15 am (UTC)

    1. You probably have to be of a certain age to fully appreciate that joke
      1. Things come around. With the banjolele making a huge comeback, George is now très de rigeur. As we used to say in Bootle.
        1. There was an interesting programme on Radio 4 a while back which revealed the unknown (to me, at least) role of George – and/or his wife and manager Beryl – as an early anti-apartheid protestor. He toured South Africa in 1946, shortly before official apartheid was enacted, and refused to play segregated venues, which very much annoyed the National Party; when their leader Daniel Malan phoned the Formbys to complain about their behaviour, Beryl supposedly said “Why don’t you piss off, you horrible little man?”

          This explains why Nelson Mandela’s first words on being released from Robben Island were “Heh heh! Turned out nice again!”

          (OK, I may have exaggerated the last bit, but the previous bit is definitely true).

          1. I saw that programme as well. Thank heavens for BBC4 – the only channel worth the licence fee IMO. There’s a definate resurgence in ukelele/banjolele playing. Our local U3A (Third Age club for oldies) even has a learners’ group. The most unlikely people are buying ukes. I think it was sparked by the Ukelele Orchestra. I’ll stick to my piano. Loved the story of George and wife in SA.
        2. To paraphrase Michael Cathcart’s joke on RN this morning Q. What does a well tuned banjolele sound like? A. No one knows.
  6. 14:46, with everything working even when I didn’t know why; as with the ‘four’ of BALFOUR or the ‘speaker’ of MORATORIA. I feel less bad about the former now that I know it’s a cricket term. I didn’t know HOBBY–or maybe I did; I suppose it’s appeared in cryptics before–but for once spotted the hidden early on.
  7. All quite straightforward for me today, except for the last one in which took an eternity! Somehow didn’t see that ANALOGIES was an anagram for the longest time, and spent ages trying to think of any word that fit.

    Didn’t know of the typo error, nor that meaning of SEVERALLY, but both were easy from cluing (or clueing?).

  8. 10 minutes again this morning, in spite of confidently putting in SECOND PRIZE like mctext.
    Nothing completely unknown, although LITERAL was only vaguely familiar and I don’t think I knew that a GRANDMASTER could be the head of a religious order. The word association wiring in my brain throws out Melle Mel much more readily than the Knights Templar.
  9. Again not much to say – a very easy puzzle finished in 15 minutes top to bottom.

    Some of the problems with 1A demonstrate the wisdom of getting some checkers in place for these cryptic definition clues before plumping for one of several possible answers. The four=boundary may present problems for our US solvers.

  10. 12 minutes, with no literals, and an enjoyable romp.
    GRANDMASTER for me defaults to dodgy handshakes and the Duke of Kent, so indeed a mild question mark over the religious order bit. Us boys used to set out the thrones and such for the lodge that met in our classroom in the Abbey Gateway, St Albans, and we just thought it mildly amusing.
    Didn’t parse GUNBOAT: I think it’s actually rather clever and probably should be CoD. I liked SILVER MEDAL (unusually for a cd), but then, fortunately, I didn’t spot the attractive alternatives.
  11. 13:01 .. some rather smart clues scattered through this, many of the sort which leave you wondering why you didn’t see them straight off (which is a good thing).

    COD to LENIN for somehow prompting the above exchange on George Formby, which had me chuckling over my toast and marmalade. My thanks to all concerned.

  12. Just over the 12 minutes, the right hand side going in easier than the left.
  15. 11 minutes, pretty straightforward, though I didn’t know that meaning of hobby.
  16. It would have helped if I’d remembered that GUNSHIPS don’t float. That buggered up the NW corner and cost me almost 10 minutes to sort. A slowish but enjoyable 35 minutes. Ann
  17. A depressingly slow 9:01. I guess I’m just going through a bad patch.

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