Times 25300 Verging on the farcical?

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A puzzle which was definitely smarter than your average Monday offering, with a word at 4 across that doesn’t even make it into Oxford Dictionaries Online. Lots of good stuff, though, which took me around 50 minutes, apart for the aforesaid, which I looked up after the hour. Possibly not the only one to do so, but we shall see.

Across

1 MODISH – MO+DISH
4 FASCICLE – CIC in false*; easy when you twig that ‘false’ is the anagrist. Keeping the arboreal theme, a fascicle is a mini fascis, or bundle, with a secondary meaning – referenced here – of one of the divisions of a book published in parts. (Fascis – actually, the plural fasces – a symbol of a power in ancient Rome, somewhat akin to the mace in the House of Commons once famously brandished by Michael Heseltine, gives us fascist.)
10 REFRESHER – FRESHER next to (touching) RE (on)
11 BOYLE – sounds like ‘boil’; the chap with the law
12 DECIDER – [si]DE + CIDER
13 ORLANDO – OR (ordinary ranks = men) + LANDO[n]; Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an early 19th C poet who unsuprisingly preferred to be known as L.E., though I don’t think this helped much fame-wise. [Alternatively, as Kevin G points out, Walter Savage Landor, who I’d also never heard of.]
14 TETRA – the only tricky bit here is to get it the right way round; for the record, ‘tetra’ is the fish and ‘tetrad’ the shortened foursome.
15 ADDICTED – DD insided I ACTED; geddit? (Kudos to the setter for getting the future perfect tense in.)
18 FOREFEET – sounds like ‘four feet’; having gone all European following the Peace Prize, I was working around ‘meter’.
20 NOBLE – the said Peace Prize with the last two letters switched; noble/imposing as in ‘noble arches’ (ODO).
23 RATCHET – RAT + C (caught) + the*
25 OUTCOME – the literal is event; OUT (in the open) + COME (attend)
26 TOPER – ‘repot’ reversed; toper (and sot) are two of the best known alcohol abusers in the cruciverbal ghetto.
27 CREPITANT – nectar it* around P[ork]; ‘is about’ is the anagrind, ‘eating’ the surroundicator; the adjective from crepitate (crackle) apparently.
28 EASTERLY – ASTER[n] in ELY
29 ATTEND – [f]ATTEN + D; worthy of a boom! boom! I reckon.

Down

1 MEREDITH – ME + R[esent] + EDIT + H[ard]; a chance for me to plug The Egoist, a book which ends as a Brian Rix-style farce.
2 DEFICIT – FED reversed + I (one) + CIT[y]
3 SHELDRAKE – SHE + larked*
5 AIR CONDITIONER – wot a Cockney would call ‘hair conditioner’, if ‘e used the bleedin’ stuff!
6 CABAL – CAB + A + L[iberal]; a bit mystified by ‘small’, but it could refer to the fact that ‘cab’ was originally an abbreviation of cabriolet or that a cabriolet was/is a light two-wheeled carriage with a hood, drawn by one horse. Or am I just over-analysing? [I know my proclivities better than I know my parsing; jackt is surely right: abb. of taxicab]
7 omitted – a spicy number nonetheless
8 ELEVON – NOVEL + E reversed; the movable part of the trailing edge of a delta wing. Unknown but guessable, especially given it’s similarity to the better known ‘aileron’, to which I see it is related via a blend with ‘elevator’.
9 PHARMACEUTICAL – a peculiar match*
16 CONSTRICT – CONS + TRICT (sounds like ‘tricked’)
17 REVERTED – RE[VERT]ED
19 OCTOPUS – CO reversed + TOP + US; apparently used to refer to an organisation with tentacles everywhere, i.e. the EU.
21 BROCADE – barcode*
22 omitted
24 I’ll omit this one too.

47 comments on “Times 25300 Verging on the farcical?”

  1. 28:22, with two wrong. My two LOIs, 28ac and 17d, took at least 10 minutes of that time, and 17 was one of the wrong ‘uns: I put in ‘repeated’. (Well, I was anxious to finish and get to the work I’m supposed to be doing.) Then I forgot to go back and fix 26ac, which I knew was wrong. Oh, well. I thought the poet at 13ac was Walter Savage Landor, but whatever works. DNK ELEVON, but as Ulaca says, guessable. Hadn’t thought of a fascicle as a bit of documentation; I believe an authoritative version of Emily Dickinson’s stuff is being issued in fascicles these days. Liked 28ac, once I got it.
    1. … will be turning in her grave now that her work is being issued as “bits of documentation”.
      1. Well, she probably started turning when her work was issued, period.
        I suspect I’ve mentioned this before (I tend to do that), but quite a few of her poems can be sung to the tune of “Wabash Cannonball”. This is what a liberal education does for one; eat your heart out, Jimbo!
  2. All sorts of trouble at the top right and the FASCICLE/ELEVON intersection in particular. Had heard of neither (and knew not CREPITANT). Refused to believe that 6dn could be CABAL: seemed too easy. (Though I think the “small” is just a bit of a dig: you can get the whole lot of ’em in a taxi: like the Brechin City Supporters Club’s new tandem perhaps?) Bit hard for me today and not the usual Warne-like run-up to the week.
  3. I’m not sure if this is the first use, but in Frank Norris’s “The Octopus” (1901), the title beast is the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the term came to be used generally to refer to monopolistic corporations.
    1. A quick bit of online research suggests that Frederick Keller’s depiction of the Southern Pacific Railroad as an octopus in his illustration ‘The Curse of California’ in a magazine in 1882 started the vogue for referring to grasping monopolies as octopi. In Hong Kong, the contactless smartcard (equivalent to the Oyster in the UK – what’s with the seafood?) with which you can make purchases at the local supermarket duopoly is called Octopus, so the trend continues.
  4. I really struggled to put in my first answer but eventually got started with 5dn. After that I made what seemed like very slow progress so I was somewhat surprised when at 35 minutes I had everything solved except 4ac and 8dn. But 20 minutes later nothing had changed so I resorted to aids to finish the grid and it was some consolation that I had never heard of either word, and to find that the definition of FASCICLE at 4ac is a bit dodgy anyway, although I suppose the question mark is intended to mitigate that.

    I only vaguely knew the names of the two authors but was more familiar with the scientist for a change.

    CREPITANT was unfamiliar but I think I had met and forgotten it.

    I don’t understand the misgivings about “small vehicle”. “Cab” is short for “taxicab” surely ?

    Edited at 2012-10-22 05:57 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks, Jack. I was over-reliant on a single page in a single source. ODO has ‘taxi cab’ under ‘cab’. (But ‘taxicab’ under ‘taxi, I now note.)
  5. Didn’t like this puzzle much – a mixture of the easy with a few difficulties caused by obscurity.

    Didn’t know Landon but had had heard of Meredith (via crosswords I think). Knew Boyle of course – the Times has a very small range of scientists.

    5D is ludicrous and the 4A-8D intersection borders on the unfair. I guessed both from the cryptic, never having heard of either. I think 4A merits a stewards enquiry.

    1. I agree with you about 4ac/8dn. Either word on its own would have been okay (given clear definitions which 4ac was most definitely lacking)but to have them intersecting was unfair in a daily puzzle.

      I agree with all those who favour Landor as the writer at 13ac, not that it matters if one gets to the correct answer by thinking of an alternative.

      1. Well I disagree with you both, albeit not vehemently. The other intersecting clues are on the easy side (the merit of 5dn notwithstanding, and my personal taste coincides with Jimbo’s)after which filling in both 4ac and 8dn is fairly straightforward from the cryptic whether you happen to know the words or not. Two intersecting unknowns (a term I much prefer to ‘obscurities’) with difficult cryptics would be another matter.
  6. 21:56 .. with one typo. Finished with educated guesswork – ELEVON, CREPITANT (which I worked out then mistyped) and FASCICLE.

    Just yesterday I was encouraging my niece, a maths undergrad, to try the Times puzzle. She protested that she”didn’t know enough words” but I assured her that her analytical skills would be more useful. I’m rather hoping she didn’t give it a go today. While the rarer words in this were all susceptible to deduction, some knowledge of etymology and morphology was probably key to finishing it.

  7. There are two possibilities. Either I’m going through solver fatigue, or this one is designed to show us TCC participants how bad it could have been.
    Landon was an assumption (who s/he? – she as it turns out, I think). OK in a TLS, but a bit fringe for here, as Landor also would be. Just as well the city is unmistakeable.
    Fortunately knew ELEVON from wasted hours on MS Flight Simulator: you can’t fly Concorde (or an Avro Vulcan) without them.
    OUTCOME/event seems an odd definition.
    FASCICLE looks like a made up word, and may also be a shifted definition. Chambers gives “a bundle or bunch, esp a bunched tuft of branches, roots, fibres, etc; a part of a book issued in parts.” Harumph.
    CREPITANT I knew as an undefined word. Now I know it means crackling. I’m so relieved.
    For some time, I thought 11 could be BLAZE, though that would have put the homophone the wrong way round. Blaise Pascal, in case you’re wondering, enough of a scientist to get his name on an SI unit.
    I even spent a while wondering whether SHELDRAKEs could fly.
    But the one that caused me most grief was FOREFEET, a perfectly OK clue, though an extra foot in my opinion is more than “a bit” more than a yard – surely “a bit more” is a metre? Pushed my time over 30 minutes. Harumph (again).
      1. In any … outcome? Thought of that though, and still didn’t like it much, but hey ho!
  8. Enjoyed this one, nice & meaty, and a good learning opportunity for those of us who need our vocab. expanding :-). The trick is, when you come across a word for the first time, to always look it up in a good dictionary. Much more likely to stick in the memory.
    13ac is surely referring to Walter Savage Landor, an interesting and not particularly obscure writer.
    19dn appeared last april (on my watch). I’ve seen fascicle too recently, but I can’t remember where..
  9. DNF today with Forefeet, Fascicle, Elevon and Boyle missing. Also made things difficult for myself in the SW corner by misspelling Horde as Hoard. Deduced Fascicle from the wordplay but not knowing the word didn’t have the confidence to write it in.

    Does anybody know where and when the puzzles from Saturday’s Championship will be published?

  10. After a miserable showing on Saturday, this puzzle could have been designed to put me off crosswords for life. Couldn’t get anywhere near FASCICLE/ELEVON, and also failed on FOREFEET. I gave up after half an hour.
    Harumph.
  11. I know ELEVON as it’s one of the components included when I signed off the Gloster Javelin’s structural integrity.
    I’d come across FASCICLE years ago when looking for an affordable copy of the big OED: it started publication in fascicles, each covering a few dozen words – but they are rare and expensive now!
  12. Nice puzzle with a couple of dodgy clues. Guessed Fascicle from the wordplay, after 20 minutes DNF because I left FOREFEET blank, and still don’t really get it. Four feet is beyond a yard, yes, but beasts walk on four legs not their forefeet? At least our dog does most of the time when he’s not knocking people over being friendly.
  14. This ended up at 20 mins quite a lot of that time devoted to wondering whether the words indicated by the wordplay for 4/8 actually existed. Very unkind to have them both in the same corner like that.
    1. A bit over 18 minutes, with a massively disproprtionate part of that spent in the same (tight) corner as most other people. The friend alongside whom I normally solve in amicable competition sent me an e-mail entitled “Farcical Eleven”, which summed up his feelings on the subject.
  15. A chap who’s never read a Shakespeare play recommending a poet I’ve never heard of. The joy of this blog in a nutshell 🙂
  16. 21.10 and left with 4a and 8d which I abandoned 15 minutes later. These are the sort of clues that kept me away from the championship despite qualifying originally. No doubt fair and gettable for experienced and confident solvers but simply disappointing in my book to spend so long puzzling over words which I and it seems many others have not heard of. EWENOS any one? Thanks for entertaining blog as ever though even after the explanation and learned discussion I still don’t get the question mark at the end of 4a which had me searching for some play on words or the other.
    1. I think the question mark is an all-purpose get-out from a setter who knows he has written a dodgy clue.
      1. Exactly. Setters seem to think that sticking a “?” on the end of a clue excuses all sorts of loose work.
  17. Got most of this (all bar 2) out in 15 minutes, eventually spotted 18 and moved on to 4. At 20 minutes I decided emough was enough and threw in the unlikely FASCICLE. Woo.

    Thanks to Ulaca for a hugely entertaining blog.

  18. As one who worked for a publishing house that produces the greatest English dictionary, I am familiar with my lexicographical friends talking about fascicles in the context of chunks of dictionary. But fascicles could be bits of documents or books. The question mark here is used carefully in terms of exemplification. Solvers may not like the word ‘fascicle’ but the word is in the dictionaries we use, the clue is fair and accurate, and the answer can be deduced from straightforward ‘wordplay’. Our Dorset friend is being somewhat intemperate, I fear. The setter.
    1. Not the same setter as Pip Kirby was talking about? (and another ? just to be on the safe side).
    2. And would that be the same dictionary that defines fascicle (online) as

      noun
      1 (also fascicule /-kjuːl/) a separately published instalment of a book or other printed work.
      2 (also fasciculus /faˈsɪkjʊləs/) (plural fasciculi) Anatomy & Biology a bundle of structures, such as nerve or muscle fibres or conducting vessels in plants.

      “Bits” is at best rather out of the scholarly sounding atmosphere of the word (?)

      Edited at 2012-10-22 04:00 pm (UTC)

  19. Struggled to finish this today as I had never heard of ELEVON and FASCICLE. Guessed at FOREFEET and CREPITANT. Thanks to everyone involved in the competition on Saturday which I entered for the first time.I managed to get a reasonable way through through the three puzzles in the first Qualifying Session which was all I could really hope for as I knew that I was considerably out of my depth in such illustrious company.However, it was a pleasurable experience (if a little nerve wracking) and I look forward to having another crack in the future. My solving has improved considerably since discovering this blog so thanks to all contributors to. I should have guessed that it was not going to be my day when I ran over a deer on the A12. It had already been hit by another vehicle and was lying in the middle of the road and I was unable to avoid it.
  20. I hesitate to add a minor question to the great fascicle debates of the day but I thought that 11 across didn’t work properly as a clue. I got it but thought that the ‘sounds like’ indicator of ‘a hearing’ should have been next to ‘be angry’ rather than the definition ‘scientist’. Or is this just showing up my inexperience?
    1. You are not alone, as you can see from my entry. The “this” in front of the scientist indicates that his name is the entry, but with the question starting with what looks like a definition, I doubt we’re the only ones to get our indicators in a twist.
  21. Wasn’t the only one who struggled here, though surprisingly it wasn’t on FASCICLE while I had met in the biological sense, and figured could be applied somewhere else, and was the only thing that fit the wordplay. It was ELEVON, CREPITANT and FOREFEET that kept me up and guessing and each had a question mark there when I decided I was done at 35 minutes. Surprised to find all three were correct.
  22. Ouch. This kept me occupied for an hour, and I was unfamiliar with CREPITANT, FASCICLE, ELEVON, and both the poets. I did like FOREFEET, though, my LOI. Very clever. Regards to all.
  23. Some vocabulary I didn’t know. I guessed FASCICLE from the cryptic but had never heard of ELEVON and had to google it. I thought that corner was a bit cruel. No problem with Walter Savage Landor. He has a connection with South Wales and met the fair maid of his most famous poem here in Swansea. He also bought Llantony Abbey which is in a depressingly gloomy and sunless spot. When I was a child in the Monmouthshire valleys my parents used to think it was a nice place to visit but it always gave me the creeps. 25 minutes
  24. 8:45 for me, with the last minute or so spent dithering over 25ac (OUTCOME). Very much my sort of puzzle: no problem with any of the vocabulary; plus a poet (LANDOR) who used to appear regularly in the Times crossword.
    1. Hi Tony. Given your interest in the old ICT1301 and with Flossie making the national news you might be interested at http://www.ict1301.co.uk/1301ccsx.htm then “people” then “the programmer” then “meet the programmer” in an account of writing programs in the 1960s written by some guy called Jim Biggin
      1. Impressive stuff, Jim. If you hadn’t resigned so peremptorily, you’d probably have finished up as CEO in a few years :-).

        From the technical point of view, I was intrigued that you skated over the tape sorts quite so blithely, as I seem to remember those being a ball of fun.

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