Times 25246 – I’d like to be 1 across, please

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 59 Minutes

Music: Old Blind Dogs, Close to the Bone

This was a solve in three parts. In part one, I did all except the SW in 20 minutes. In part two, I was totally stuck for 20 minutes. In part three, I laboriously struggled to complete the remaining quadrant.

Was the puzzle really that hard? Difficult to say, but it wss not the usual Monday beginner’s fare. Most annoyingly, I had guessed all the components for 18, but couldn’t put them together, and then finally ended up entering it from the literal after getting some crossing letters.

Across
1 IN GOOD HEALTH, anagram of HEADLIGHT ON around O.
8 INEXACT, IN[d]EX + ACT, with a well-hidden literal.
9 RHUBARB, sounds like RUE + BARB. I am always relieved when it turns out to be a plant I have heard of.
11 GLIMPSE, GL(IMPS)E, the enclosure being an anagram of LEG. The CRS sense of ‘butcher’s’ has been used so much, they’re probably about to switch and use it as an anagrind.
12 SUNBELT, SUN[day] + BE(L)T. A rather obsolescent expression, popular in the 70s and 80s.
13 RAKED, K[ew] inside DEAR backwards.
14 OBEISANCE, OBE + anagram of IN CASE. The kind of clue I’m good at, slapped it right in. The trouble came later.
16 UNREFINED, UN(REF)I + DEN backwards. Lift and separate ‘official in academic institution’, as I suspected but needed a crossing letter to confirm
19 Omitted!
21 FETLOCK, FE + COLT backwards + K. I wanted to put this in for a long time without being able to figure out the cryptic. The ‘horse’ part of the clue, of course, suggests it.
23 AGITATO, TATI backwards inside A GO.
24 TBILISI, ‘TIS I outside LIB backwards. I struggled with the spelling before letting the cryptic guide me.
25 TITANIC, hidden in [isn’]T IT AN IC[eberg]
26 BATTLEGROUND, reverse cryptic, clue for TABLET.
 
Down
1 ICE PICK, anagram of PC [d]ICKIE. Obvious to those with the knowledge, probably very obscure to those unfamiliar with Stalin’s operations in Mexico.
2 GRASPED, GRA(S)PE + D.
3 ON THE TOWN, double definition, one semi-jocular, requiring a passing acquaintance with English local government.
4 Omitted.
5 AQUINAS, AQU(IN)AS.
6 TRADE-IN, TRA(DE)IN.
7 FINGER BUFFET, FIN(G)ER + BUFFET. I was held up by this for a long time, expecting a specific food.
10 BUTTERSCOTCH, BUTTER[y] + SCOTCH, I suppose, since I just banged this in from the literal when solving. The UK university meaning of ‘buttery’ is just within my ken.
15 END MATTER, END(MAT)TER, where the enclosing letters are an anagram of TENDER. I had ‘end papers’ for a long time before realizing the ‘t’ was missing. The ‘end matter’ of a book is the appendices, the index, etc.
17 RETSINA, R + ET(SIN)A. A diabolic &lit, where ‘drunk’ is not an anagram indicator, but rather points to enclosure, as I figured out after I saw the answer. The clue turns out to be quite amusing once you see it.
18 FLORIST, F(LO + SIR upside down)T. Yes, the one I was quite chagrined to get as one of my last in.
19 SHIATSU, S + HIATUS with the ‘US’ needing to switch. My last in, very clever.
20 LEARNED, LE(ARNE)D. The LED has not been commonly used in watches for some time, but the idea is clear enough.
22 KNIFE, [l]EF[t] + INK, all upside down. I wanted this to be ‘kriss’ for the longest time, but that is not even the correct spelling.

39 comments on “Times 25246 – I’d like to be 1 across, please”

  1. Is there a theme here? At least five clues/answers associated with health.

    My only real query is whether “was taught” = LEARNED (20dn). As we all know, one can learn without being taught and (unfortunately) vice versa.

    1. I parsed it as ‘was taught to’, as in was taught to sing, but that wd admittedly still leave you needing one more ‘to’.

      Edited at 2012-08-20 06:27 am (UTC)

  2. 45 minutes in all but most was completed in under 30. I couldn’t think of the Georgian city or the Japanese treatment and although I had thought of INEXACT at 8ac I wasn’t able to justify it until satisfying myself that there was no better option. Kicked myself when I finally saw it.

    I enjoyed the hidden at 25ac.

  3. A slow, but plodding, and yet time-consuming 66′. Unlike Jackkt, I could and did think of the Georgian city, but couldn’t spell it, which made RETSINA (an early guess) and FETLOCK (another) impossible. All in all, I was slow, dim, dumb; actually thought of ‘pills’ before getting SALTS, say no more, say no more. Like Jack, I thought 25ac was a wonderful hidden; like Vinyl, tried to force ‘kris’ into 22d. COD to 21ac. I think I counted 7 reversal clues: ‘over’ (21ac, 28d), ‘around’ (24ac), ‘switch’ (19d), ‘back (23ac), ‘up’ (22d), ‘returned’ (13ac). Mctext, it doesn’t always work that way, but if one was taught X, one learned X. That, supposedly, is the difference between ‘He taught French to the students’ (did they learn? maybe not), and ‘He taught the students French’ (they learned).
  4. 19’18” apparently, with two clues requiring a good stare at the entire skeleton before light dawned. Actually, I still didn’t believe END MATTER even as I pressed a hopeful submit. I’d never come across it as a term before, and it looked rather made up. Chambers is in the same boat, but I see online dictionaries have it as an alternative to “back matter”. Now there’s helpful.
    The other was INEXACT. How odd that end matter should be an integral part, but although it was the only fit I could think of, the in(d)ex remained elusive for a fair time.
    SUNBELT was a third not-quite-sure, though it seems pretty much coterminous with the better-known Bible Belt. I am indebted to the cryptic for not putting an embarrassing second U in AQUINAS.
    CoD to the clever BATTLEGROUND, with a nod at TITANIC.
  5. 63 mins and my gratitude to my fellow Monday blogger for quite a few of the cryptics. On the debit side, I never saw the hidden, failed to see the wordplay-in-the-answer thing for the long across, was in that intermediary position I so often find myself in – this time vis-a-vis the Trotsky clue – of thinking at once ‘Ax?’ – in hide and seek parlance warm rather than hot or cold, liked INEXACT a lot for the literal but didn’t tumble to the correct interpretation of the deleted ‘d’ until coming here, etc. On the credit side, well not much I see now – except a misspent youth listening under the bed sheets to midweek football matches meant TBILISI was a shoo-in.

    But not too bad for an early morning solve still a bit jet-lagged.

  6. Had a rough time here, stuck on inexact for 8 minutes at the end, finally submitted in 35 and found I had Shiatsu wrong. I went for Shintsu with a hint an unlikely break. I hope PC Dickie means more to others than to me. I have no quarrel with ‘learned’ for ‘was taught’ but the ‘to’ seems superfluous. The tablet doesn’t go down that easily into the surface. It’s probably my myopia but here and there it seems just a touch 16.
    On second thoughts of course the tablet’s fine as memorial stone. But I’m still bemused by the police constable.

    Edited at 2012-08-20 09:06 am (UTC)

    1. PC Dickie was a regular character in the TV series Dr Finlay’s Casebook. I don’t know whether he was in the books or why anyone would be expected to remember him so perhaps it’s just a coincidence.

      Edited at 2012-08-20 10:11 am (UTC)

    1. Bemused by what seemed a patently made-up name, not the anagram. Jackkt’s reminder he was in Dr Finlay’s Casebook (which I watched occasionally in my student days but gave up when my girlfriend declared an interest in Dr F. himself) redeems it a little but I’d say it’s still a sub-Timesian pick.
      1. I agree: I doubt there is a connection between Leon Trotsky and Dr Finlay’s Casebook. though nothing is impossible I suppose
  8. Nice, and rather harder than the traditionally gentle “Monday puzzle”, which the editor thus proves does not exist. 22:51 after staring long and hard at INEXACT (finally remembering the maxim that if you can’t see the definition, it never hurts to break the clue down, even to single words, till you spot it) and END MATTER (didn’t know the term, but worked out it must be END _A_TER, then plodded through the alphabet in an appropriately dull fashion – for some reason I always think of MAT as being MATT, though both are equally valid).

    Re: 1 down, today is the 72nd anniversary of the fatal attack on Trotsky, though that’s not the sort of thing a solver might know unless they happen to know it. In other news, I am now earwormed by The Stranglers.

    Edited at 2012-08-20 09:41 am (UTC)

  9. I found this fairly easy (around 15 minutes) and was able to solve quite a few without really attending to the cryptic. And as so often, that was my downfall. If I had really looked at 24a, I might not have spelt it TLIBISI.

    Like topicaltim, I’m now going to be spending the day with The Stranglers.

  10. Count me among those who found this a tough Monday work-out – the top half went in quickly enough, but I became bogged down in the bottom half. I’d never heard of END MATTER and, like Vinyl, made life more complicated by having END PAPERS for some time. I agree that TITANIC at 25 ac was a brilliant hidden solution. SHIATSU, OBEISANCE, RETSINA, FETLOCK and TBILISI were all clever. No problems for me with “was taught” = “learned” at 20 dn, and, if the latter is to be substituted for the former, the “to” is surely not padding (as suggested in one comment above) but absolutely necessary. I have reservations about BATTLEGROUND (26 ac) – a clever idea but the anagram of “tablet” doesn’t seem to me to be adequately signalled anywhere in the clue’s rather clumsy surface read.
    1. In the answer: battle ground suggesting tablet. Maybe I’m blind but I still don’t see what ‘to’ is doing in 20 apart from making the surface readable. (‘Set alongside’ seems unlikely.)
      1. I’m still not convinced that 26 ac really works, but I see where you are coming from with 20 dn. On reflection, I guess you are right that the main purpose of the “to” is to make the surface readable -the setter’s defence, perhaps, would be that both “was taught” and “learned” can be followed the preposition “to”.
  11. 63 minutes with last 10 searching for something to complete 8ac but nothing came so 63 for a DNF – rain meant I went beyond my usual 40 minute limit. It was INEXACT which stumped me and that seemed to sum up my overall efforts!
  12. 68 minutes with TBILISI wrong. Started off in fine fettle in the NW and then came to a grinding halt. What’s happened to those Monday strolls in the park of yore? As bemused by some of the surfaces as others and clearly totally perplexed by the cryptics. COD to FINGER BUFFET.
  13. Struggled with the bottom half of this after racing through the top. Didn’t know END MATTER and solved from cryptic. Got a mental block with SHIATSU and RETSINA and couldn’t recall how to spell TBILISI. Limped home in 30 minutes. My excuse is heat exhaustion – makes a change from wet rot.
  14. About 40 minutes, and I agree this was no easy Monday canter. LOI was INEXACT. I thought the BATTLEGROUND was clever, and I hadn’t known before how Trotsky met his end. From topicaltim’s helpful comment above, I gather that the gruesome event occurred in 1940. I would not have guessed that he lived that long, nor that there was a surfeit of ice down Mexico way at that time. Perhaps the ice pick was imported, along with the the assassin. In any event, thanks to the setter for the unexpected Monday workout, and regards to all.
  15. If only I’d checked TBILISI instead of glibly writing in TIBLISI I’d have clocked RETSINA and finished cleanly in half an hour. Instead of which, festina lente. What kind of language can Georgian be if it has words beginning TB… ? Nice puzzle, as several have observed, not a normal Monday romp.
    1. An interesting one. Apparently Tb is nothing. If you want to say (though why you should I’ve no idea) “you tear us”, it’s got eight consonants before you reach the comfort of a vowel: გვბრდღვნი (gvbrdgvni). The best I knew before that was zmrzlina, which is Czech for ice cream. Mind you, we’ve got six consecutive consonants within a well known placename.
  16. could it be salts, Tar is a salt [sailor] s last letter of lungs ,eg smelling salts
  18. For me too this was trickier than a typical Monday’s puzzle. Solved in approx 30 minutes – two 15 minute sessions either side of my wife arriving home from work. Made several hopeless attempts at spelling Tbilisi and only got it right once I had all the checking letters. Thought Titanic was an excellent clue.
  19. A few years ago I remember being very impressed by ‘What hit it? An iceberg, submerged’, which I think is even better than 25ac, although both are good.
  20. 12:50 for me, with INEXACT holding me up at the finish. It felt quite tough for a Monday, though heat exhaustion affects me badly, as it does dorsetjimbo.

    I may well have come across END MATTER before, but had forgotten it – and was lucky to have a solid T in place to rule out the tempting END PAPERS.

    Am I the only person worried by “Some French” = DE (rather than DU, DE LA or DES) in 6dn? Apart from that, an interesting puzzle.

    1. It’s been far too long since I’ve used French, but aren’t there partitive locutions that take DE? Oh. I knew ‘front matter’, but not END MATTER. Front matter is the stuff before the book itself begins, as it were: title page, the page with the copyright date, publisher, Lib. of Congress/Brit.Lib. CIP data, etc. (but not, I think, the table of contents). END MATTER seems more like part of the book itself (I imagine, for instance, that appendices and indexes are covered in the copyright).
  21. As far as I know, the partitive form is always du, de la, de l’ or des when it means “some”. It’s omitted when it follows the preposition de, as in, for example, j’ai besoin d’argent (“I need money”), which might look like a counter-example at first glance.
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