Times 25208

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 27 minutes

My laptop is still not fixed, so I solved this offline. An offline solve in under half an hour is quite rare for me at the moment, especially on a blogging day when I’m solving late at night, so I’m guessing this must be a pretty easy one. I certainly wasn’t held up anywhere for more than a minute or two.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 FOODSTUFF = (OF DUST OFF)*
6 ON TOW – hidden
9 ANISEED = IS in (A + NEED)
10 REFRAIN = REF + “REIGN” – A meaning of burden that I hadn’t come across before: a bourdon or bass; the part of a song repeated at the end of every stanza, a refrain.
11 COOK’S TRAIT
12 THUrS
14 DROSS = DOSS about Rem
15 PINE + APPLE
16 SEQUESTER = QUEST in SEE + R – it took me a while to work out the wordplay here, as I was assuming ‘queen’ in the clue would be the QU, but no, it’s just the R for Regina.
18 bLIGHT
20 B + RIG
21 IN THE WINGS – dd
25 ANTENNA = (A + N + NET) all rev after (A + N)
26 RETSINA = cANISTER rev
27 D + hUSKY
28 ENDURANCE = (UNDER ACNE)* – ‘patient suffering’ makes rather a good and slightly misleading definition
Down
1 FRANCo
2 gORINg lOCk nOw – the South American river / Womble
3 STEPSISTER = (PETS RESIST)*
4 UDDER – cd – No, it’s an &lit. As well as steers being male cattle and hence having no udders, it’s also RUDDER (something that steers) without the first R. Genius!
5 FO(REIGN)E + R
6 OFF + A – 8th century King of Mercia with a fondness for dykes
7 TEA SHOP = (E + POT HAS)*
8 WINDS + WEPT
13 TA + BLEW + AT + ER
14 DASH + BOARD
15 P(O + TENT)ATE
17 QUIET + US – a new word to me
19 GEN + T(I)AN – and another new word to me
22 cHaIr + RED
23 STAGE – dd
24 ENVoY

41 comments on “Times 25208”

  1. 4D is cleverer than you give it credit. It is also “something that steers” RUDDER lacking right “R”
    1. I missed the whole rudder aspect to the clue completely. Suddenly it’s become my COD.
    1. Only double, I think. 1) Support for acting, and 2) Coach. Glad you agree about my earlier explanation of 4dn.

      Edited at 2012-07-06 07:41 am (UTC)

  3. 11:18, a PB. I like Paulmcl’s explanation of 4D, which I had been wondering about. I hesitated over ON TOW, since I’d say ‘in tow’, and since it took me a while to think of the king. 2d was a clever clue, but it was easy to get from checkers; rather a pity, in a way.
    1. … but growing up in the UK in the 1950s there were frequent vehicle breakdowns. At least in our part of the country. As I remember, said vehicles carried a sign at the back reading “On Tow”. Brits please correct me if I’m wrong.
      1. I’m sure that’s right but even more commonly, if my memory serves, the notice used to go on the back of caravans. Possibly it still does but one is rarely stuck behind them for miles on end as one was in the days before the roads were improved, so I don’t recall seeing it recently.

        Edited at 2012-07-06 07:02 am (UTC)

        1. Reminds me that last year I saw a sign on the back of a trailer in the depths of rural Ireland which said ‘On Toe’.
  4. 4dn is (r)UDDER.

    17 minutes for the second time this week! It’s just as well the editor threw in those two toughies on Wednesday and Thursday or I might be thinking I was starting to improve. No problems with anything here other than parsing 16ac after completing the grid where I also tried QU for Queen, then ER before finally settling on R alone.

    Edited at 2012-07-06 12:52 am (UTC)

  5. QUIETUS features in the middle of the world’s best known soliloquy along with a couple of other words that may pop up in crosswordland from time to time, bodkin (dagger) and the gorgeous ‘fardel’ (burden). Here they are in the spotlight for once:

    ‘For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
    The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
    The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
    The insolence of office and the spurns
    That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
    When he himself might his quietus make
    With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
    To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
    But that the dread of something after death,
    The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
    No traveller returns, puzzles the will
    And makes us rather bear those ills we have
    Than fly to others that we know not of?’

    1. I like the pre-Barca Cesc Fabregas version of that soliloquy:

      For who would bear the trips (and Brown) of Tigers,
      The arbiters’ wrongs, Big Loud Sam’s contumely,
      The pain of despised long-ball, Rory Delap,
      The insolence of S’rAlex, and the Spurs
      That patent merit not, the unworthy flakes;
      When he himself might in first class awake, with Iberia Airlines?

      Who’d defensive muddles bear,
      To grunt and sweat under a Wenger life,
      But that the dread of the Camp Nou bench,
      That under-cover gantry from whence forlorn
      No travailer returns, puzzles the Mill
      And makes us rather bear the ills we have
      Than fly to others that we know not of?

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/2960081

      1. Excellent!

        ‘That patent merit not, the unworthy flakes;
        When he himself might in first class awake, with Iberia Airlines?’ is particularly good.

        ‘Mill’? I may be being dull, but this allusion I don’t get.

        1. Not dull… it came from the column “The Rumour Mill” on the Guardian’s football site, which column’s authors always refer to themselves as, “The Mill.”
  6. A sluggish – as it now appears – 22 minutes for me, ending with STAGE, so definitely a slow coach.

    Wanted to put ‘Olaf’ at 6dn in honour of Elgar’s lovely part-song ‘As torrents in summer’, which is a setting of two stanzas from part of Longfellow’s Tales of a Wayside Inn called ‘The Musician’s Tale; The Saga of King Olaf’.

    Congratulations to Kevin on yet another PB!

    1. Thanks! It came at a good time, after the last two, which both took forever after I went offline.
  7. Great puzzle and a relief (for this, much thanks!) after Wed and Thurs. 4dn is as brilliant an &lit as I’ve seen in a long time. Hats off to that.
  8. The lightest of workouts. If I can manage 12.08 there are going to be some seriously fast times today.
  9. I wanted this to be Otto, old plus TT for race but couldn’t work in another o for old (or any other o word). Evidently I am two old.

  10. All done and dusted before breakfast. That’s quick for me! An easy one after yesterday’s stinker.

    Only problems were: REFRAIN (unknown as burden), couldn’t parse ORINOCO, don’t think I knew QUIETUS.

    See you all next week!

  11. 12 minutes, so either I’m getting my mojo back or this one was pretty straightforward. Both could be true.
    That Q in SEQUESTER was such a gimme for “queen” that it completely blinded me to the real breakdown.
    ORINOCO a technical delight for those of us that bothered to break it down.
    UDDER is simply brilliant – unrivalled CoD
  12. 8:47, which came as something of a relief after recent travails. Generally pleasant puzzle on the easy side of things, with the aside that 4dn was the clue of the day (and would be on pretty much any other day as well), so I add a tip of my hat to the setter for that.
  13. 10m for the third time this week, which is some kind of record. So three easy ones and two stinkers.
    Although easy I found this very enjoyable to solve, perhaps just because of the laugh-out-loud brilliance of UDDER.
    My only unknown today was “burden” as a REFRAIN, but COOK STRAIT and GENTIAN were only vaguely familiar.
  14. 27.43 and like others glad to be on the dance floor after two DNFs. My COD to 4d but liked the Hamlet link others have noted after two days of grunting and sweating under a wearisome setter!
  15. Mention of Longfellow reminded me that in “Robert of Sicily” as the king sat at vestpers,

    repeated like a burden or refrain he caught these words
    “Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles”.
    And lifting up his head, he to a learned clerk beside him said
    “What mean those words?” The clerk made answer meet,
    “He hath put down the mighty from their seat
    And hath exalted them of low degree”
    Whereat King Robert muttered scornfully
    “tis well that such seditious words are sung
    only by priests and in the Latin tongue,
    for unto priests and people be it known
    there is no power can push me from my throne”
    and leaning back, he yawned and fell asleep,
    lulled by the chant,monotonous and deep.
    jfr

  17. About 25 minutes, including interruptions. (I really am going to have to solve the crossword in the garden shed or the privy.)

    Thought DASHBOARD and OFFA each deserved a tick, but the gold star undoubtedly went to UDDER.

    If you’d attended primary school before about 1960, Dave, GENTIAN would have been a familiar word. I recall unfortunate children who suffered from impetigo being painted with gentian violet. The scabbiness of the complaint was bad enough, but the purple dye drew everyone’s attention to the poor little devils. I wonder if the condition is still common in schools, along with ringworm, scabies and nits. Happy days!

  18. 10:04, which felt slow.  Last one in ORINOCO (2d); only unknown: DOSS meaning sleep (14a).  My problems came in the SE corner where an “in the works” brain fart (21a IN THE WINGS) made it take a while for GENTIAN (19d) to emerge.

    Mostly nice clues, but I had a few quibbles: not all FOODSTUFFs are going to be eaten (1a), and ‘that’s going’ could have been deleted without loss; the definition by example in 18a (‘bulb’ for LIGHT) is unindicated; ‘replaced’ is surely too vague as a reversal indicator (25a ANTENNA); and it’s not actually true that an English pot has to be brewed up in a TEA SHOP (7d), so the definition could do with a question mark.

    Clue of the Day: 4d (UDDER) – though I can’t see why vinyl1 thinks it’s a double &lit.

    1. 7d: ‘Has’ is part of the anagrist so should not be included in the definition.

      Replaced pronounced re-placed is unarguably a perfectly acceptable anagrind or reversal indicator.

      What else does one do with a foodstuff other than eat it or are we into quibbling about the food that gets left on one’s plate?

      Edited at 2012-07-06 12:56 pm (UTC)

      1. You’re right that “replaced” is a perfectly good anagrind but indirect anagrams aren’t allowed so that’s not what it is here. As a reversal indicator I do think it’s a bit vague.
  19. Just missed the half-hour (my definition of really easy) mainly through putting in WINDSPEED for 8d, rather surprised that it got past the editor. Congratulations to the setter for the many entertaining clues.
  20. Played in a special seniors competition today and the rain came down is stair-rods after the forcasters led us to believe we were in for a dry day. Golf in the rain is not fun so I turned to this for some light relief and was pleased with the outcome.

    Only 15 minutes to solve but good fun all the way with (r)-UDDER a real standout gem. Thank you setter – just what I needed

  21. Leisurely 20 minute solve. Like others, I loved 4d – definately my COD (or COW for that matter!). Got OFFA straight away. The only 4 letter king beginning with O that I could think of. Being born and bred just to the left-hand side of the dyke helps. (Incidentally, I have a friend whose hobby is walking the dyke. His wife drives him to the start, then he does a day’s walking in a northerly direction and she picks him up. Next time he starts from the pick up spot. He’s walked the total length dozens of times.) Thank you, Ulaca, for the reminder of that lovely song. I know it well, but not the longer work it’s part of. Ann
  22. After a hard struggle for the last two days, it was nice to work my way through this entertaining crossword in 10 minutes. Lovely stuff.
  24. 7:27 for me – slightly better, but still off the pace. I’ll join others in voting for 4dn (UDDER) as COD.
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