Times 25250 – Not over the moon

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I made heavy weather of this perfectly straightforward and rather uninspiring puzzle so I won’t embarrass myself by quoting a solving time. I suspect on a non-blogging day I would easily have achieved my personal target of 30 minutes, but blogger’s nerves put paid to that unfortunately. Only the unit of currency was unknown to me, and the opera reference, although I knew of the character from mythology and the thread named after her that I sometimes need to employ when solving Sudoku puzzles. Oh, and it’s a pangram.

* = anagram

Across
1 JERSEY – A cryptic reference to the nursery rhyme in which the cow jumped over the moon. A breed of cattle.
4 NARCOSIS – Hidden and reversed
10 ZILLION – ILL (trouble) inside ZION (heaven, in Christian thought)
11 ACRYLIC – CRY (produce tears) inside ALICe (adventurous girl almost). This can be a type of paint, hence the ‘coat’ reference, although come to think of it, it’s also a fibre that’s made into clothing.
12 YOGA – A, GOY (Gentile) all reversed. The COD has this as derogatory.
13 MARIONETTE – RIO (city), NET (catch), all inside MATE (fellow)
15 SHOWPIECE – (WHOSE EPIC)*. ‘Byzantine’ is the anagrind.
16 THETA – THE (not just any old), TA (group of volunteers, Territorial Army).
18 ASSET – AS, SET
19 DICHOTOMY – CID (detectives, reversed), HOT (stolen), O (ring), MY (that’s awesome!)
21 POSSESSION – S (back of stallS) inside NOISES (sounds), SO (extremely), ) P (quietly) all reversed.
23 BAHT – BAH (I’m not impressed), T (time). Yet another unit of currency that’s new to me, this time from Thailand.
26 ARIADNE – ARIA (song), END (reversed). There’s an opera ‘Ariadne on Naxos’ by Richard Strauss which I assume is the reference here.
27 COURIER – COURtIER
28 DETHRONE – THE* + R (king) inside DONE (finished)
29 Deliberately omitted
Down
1 JAZZY – ZZ (final letter in duplicate) inside JAY (chatterer). COD mentions the chattering nature of the jay’s call.
2 RELIGIOUS – (OR GUILE IS)*
3 Deliberately omitted
5 AVARICE – AcquireR inside A VICE
6 CORONATION – OR (alternatively) inside CO (business), NATION (people)
7 SPLIT – L (pounds) inside SPIT (offshore bank). Slang for ‘leave’.
8 SECRETARY – (RACE TYRES)*
9 INTAKE – TA (thanks) inside INKEd (marked incomplete)
14 SPOT-WELDER – W (tungsten) + EL (article from Spain) inside RED TOPS (tabloids, reversed). Something of a gift after the appearance of ‘red top’ in yesterday’s puzzle.
15 SWAMPLAND – SWAM (floated), PLAN (proposal), Drainage
17 EVOCATIVE – EVITA (musical), COVE (old-fashioned character) all reversed
19 DISCERN – DISC (record) + R (resistance) inside EN (small measure)
20 CROUCH – Cleaning, Religiously, OUCH (that’s painful!)
22 SHIFT – F (female) inside THIS*. A loose-fitting garment that might have been clued less tastefully.
24 TARDY – TAR (sailor), DreadfullY
25 QUIP – eQUIP

28 comments on “Times 25250 – Not over the moon”

  1. Agree with Jack that this wasn’t the easiest of the week. Everything, for me at least, pivoted on 13ac, MARIONETTE which I couldn’t get (let alone parse) for ages and with only the N and the final E to go on. “Capital” leaves a few contenders; but then I suppose it had to be a short word. So, I figured: MA(RIO)N; wondering where the rest came from. It’s written out no fewer than three times on the scratch area. A fiendish clue.

    26ac: I wonder if there’s a string quartet called “Ariadne”?

  2. 22:48. It took me almost forever to parse 13ac, and I failed to parse 21ac until coming here; thought ‘sounds extremely’=SS, never thought of ‘so’. DK JAZZY in this sense. ‘Rather uninspiring’ pretty much sums it up, although I sort of liked CORONATION and NARCOSIS. 14d was clever, too, but the enumeration gave it away. Ariadne quartet, you ask? http://www.carolinewaldemarsson.se/web/page.aspx?refid=18

    Edited at 2012-08-24 03:49 am (UTC)

    2. I don’t know whether the expression is still used, but back in the 50s and 60s some people wore ‘jazzy’ ties and sweaters of garish hue and/or design.
    3. You beat me to it by about 5 hours. I’m delighted to see they are “consertizing” – now there’s a word to work in to a grid.
  3. I probably shouldn’t have solved this after dinner and a couple of glasses of wine but as I’m on this side of the Atlantic the puzzle was available to me and I couldn’t resist. It took me 27 minutes, but whether this reflects the difficulty of the puzzle I can’t say.
    I solved MARIONETTE with no problems: it was POSSESSION that held me up for ages. A very good clue.
    I was completely mystified by JAZZY but I suppose “loud” in the sense of “garish” gets you there.
  4. I was also delayed by possession, and the swampland cross. I always thought floating wasn’t swimming. 42 minutes for what I found a deft piece of work and as inspiring, if that’s the word, as most. Looking at the number, seems no time since 25,000. 5 neatly worded.
  5. I was going to write about how brilliant I thought this one was (23 minutes, by the by), full of polished gems that would have been CoDs in any of this week’s offerings, but who am I to go against the prevailing mood?
    I was switched on by 1ac, which I first thought might be the prosaic BOVINE, but actually grinned at the JERSEY/jumper connection. I thought 5 a fine &lit. DETHRONE with its urge to insert Ivan somehow was a good, if semi- &lit. Likewise MARIONETTE, so easy to see MAN round RIO but leaving the rest a mystery. Several cleverly elusive definitions: 19ac and 7d in particular had me looking in the wrong direction. THETA probably made me smile most.
    Score one for the enthusiasts – anyone else?
  6. 16:51 and thought this was both challenging and entertaining. No giveaways from obvious definitions, but all perfectly fairly done, using sleight of hand (sleight of pen?) rather than obscure vocabulary.
  7. Easier than most Fridays I thought. My only serious hold-ups were in the SW corner where LOI Possession was preceded by Asset, Swampland and Shift. COD to Avarice – thought that one was very good.
  8. Not an easy puzzle surely and with some nice touches. I found it neither particularly inspiring nor a bore. Average fare but to the difficult side of the distribution.

    Not convinced by swam (which implies activity)=floated (which implies inactivity). No problem with JAZZY which as Jack says was widely used to mean loud in 1960s

  9. Easier than most Friday cryptics but still quite a challenge. About 45 mins for me. The comments above suggest that this is a puzzle which is going to divide opinion. I’m with those who thought it good and entertaining with some excellent touches – JERSEY, AVARICE, POSSESSION. DICHOTOMY and MARIONETTE stood out for me. I too questioned swam = floated at 15 dn (for the same reasons as cited by Jimbo), but the dictionaries would seem to be unequivocal on the point, so I’ll go quietly.
  10. 20:37 .. not on the setter’s wavelength (perhaps, in the solipsistic spirit of the age, I should say that the setter just doesn’t get me). Then again, if every puzzle was right up my street I would probably complain about that, too. Who’d be a setter, eh?

    That said, SWAMPLAND, THETA and SHIFT are all really nicely done.

    Of no relevance at all, today is the anniversary of the invention of the waffle iron (1869). See what you’ve done, Mr Berners-Lee?

    1. Now a requisite of every politician’s vocabulary in the U.K. See what you’ve done, Ed Miliband?

      Edited at 2012-08-24 12:51 pm (UTC)

  11. How I wish you guys hadn’t stimulated my competitive juices – failed to stop the clock after this one, too busy putting out the flames ignited by friction between my quill and the paper – do you think the NASA gift shop does a liquid-nitrogen cooled ballpoint?
    1. NASA did spend millions developing a ballpoint pen for use in space. It had a pressurised ink reservoir, in lieu of gravity making the ink flow.

      I quite liked this, a few nice &lits and devious definitions to amuse. Slightly trickier at 40 mins than the avreage 30.

      Rob

  12. I’m a little surprised about the misgivings expressed regarding swim/swam as all three of the usual sources give ‘float’ as a direct definition. And here’s the relevant section of the OED entry:

    Swim, v. 2a: To float on the surface of any liquid; to be supported on water or other fluid; not to sink; to form the upper part of a mass of liquid. Sometimes, To rise and float on the surface.

    I enjoy lively puzzles with references to things that interest me and perhaps with some humour, both of which were lacking in today’s (with 1ac as the notable exception). That’s why I said “rather uninspiring” but it’s a very personal thing.

  14. Personally, I just glance at the grid, speed-read the clues then solve the whole thing in my head. I assumed everyone did.
    1. Right. I just predict the clues based on a complex algorithm 24 hours before publication, visualise the grid and solve mentally as a means to time the decay period of the Higgs boson. Doesn’t everyone?
      1. As I’m in the wrong time zone at the moment, technically I solved this four and a half hours before I started it. In my sleep.
  15. I am with those who enjoyed this puzzle. I had a lot of problems with yesterday’s offering which came in a slightly over the hour. By contrast this was a smooth 27 minutes solve. I think it’s the wavelength thing. It’s nice to see a “new” operatic heroine making her debut (or have we had her before?). Makes a change from Tosca, Mimi, Aida and Lulu – all of which I remember from previous occasions. Ann
  16. My wavelength too, romped through in 16 minutes with half of that spent on the SE corner. As we began, Mrs K (a Concise quick solver) got 1 ac from J…E. and made us both smile. New to the Thai currency, jackkt? Go visit soon, it’s a magic land, never conquered or colonised.
  17. Count me with those who enjoyed this puzzle, too. I struggled with a couple of the clues, but in a good way..
    Swim means float, sometimes. Soup can have a crouton swimming in it; but I recommend not eating it if it shows signs of activity.
  18. 13:39 for me, after a bad start wasting time imagining that the answer to 1ac was BOVINE – whereas JERSEY is much better.

    I was nervous about the 23ac, since currencies come second only to food in the list of areas I know little about, but BAHT sounded familiar (more familiar than PAHT anyway).

    COVE = “old-fashioned character”? Oh dear! It’s the sort of word I still use quite happily myself.

    My slow time meant that I didn’t enjoy this as much as I might have done – but that’s my fault rather than the setter’s. Absolutely nothing wrong with the puzzle.

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