Times 25,309 – The House of Knocks

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
In another crossword blog, I bemoaned the reversion from BST to GMT which makes me wait another hour before I get my daily fix. However, today’s puzzle soon got me smiling. Thank you, setter, whoever you are for an entertaining puzzle.
ACROSS
1 MEDICI MEDIC (trainee doctor) + I (one) The House of Medici or Famiglia de’ Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de’ Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. 
4 CLASS ACT Ins of LASS (girl) in CACTUS (something prickly) minus US
10 LASH OUT Ins of ASH (wood) in LOUT (hooligan)
11 MANKIND Ins of N (new) + KIN (relations) in MAD (enthusiastic)
12 ROOD DROOD minus D. The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel (unfinished) by Charles Dickens.
13 MELANCHOLY Ins of ELAN (vitality) in MC (master of ceremony, host) HOLY (good)
15 CONCEITED CON (Conservative, Tory) CEITED (sounds like seated, in the chair)
16 SHAVE Ins of H (husband) in SAVE (bar, except for)
18 POSER Rev of RE (about) SOP (placatory gift)
19 LINKLATER Ins of INK (something a writer needs) + L (left) in LATER (after) Andro Linklater, 68 is a non-fiction writer and historian. Could also refer to his father, Eric Linklater
21 COMES ABOUT Ins of ME (this person) in CO’S (firm’s) A BOUT (fight)
23 BOMB BOM (rev of MOB, gang) + B (first letter of banking) 
26 TERRAIN TERRAPIN (turtle) minus P (piano, soft)
27 HANSARD Ins of A N & S (north & south, a couple of points on the compass) in HARD (intractable) for reports of debates in parliament
28 Deliberately omitted. What a superb &littish hidden answer … my COD
29 EXPERT EX (old lover) PERT (saucy)
DOWN
1 MALAR M (maiden) ALARM (warning of danger) minus M
2 DES MOINES Ins of *(SOME) in DINES (has a meal) for the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa
3 CROW CROWN (fancy piece on head) minus N
5 LOMBARD LO (behold) M (first letter of Munich) BARD (poet) The term Lombard refers to members of or things related, directly or indirectly, to the Lombards (Latin: Langobardi), a Germanic tribe that dominated northern Italy and adjoining areas from the 6th to 8th centuries.
6 Anagram of ANTS SCALED deliberately omitted
7 AMIGO Am I go (game) for friend in Spanish
8 TEDDY BEAR *(DRY DEBATE)
9 AT BEST Ins of B (bishop) in A TEST (an ordeal)
14 DEPRESSANT DE (rev of EDitor) PRESS (printing house) ANT (worker)
15 CAPACITOR Ins of A CI (hundred and one) in CAPTOR (jailer) for an electrical device capable of storing electric charge
17 ASTROLABE A + ins of L (lake) + A in STROBE (transmitter of flashes) for an ancient instrument for showing the positions of the sun and bright stars at any given time, or for taking altitudes above the horizon.
19 LEBANON Cha of LE (the French) B (British) ANON (soon)
20 NOUGHT Ins of UGH (disgusting) in NOT (rev of TON, people of fashion, fashion set)
22 MORON Ins of R (Regina, queen) in MOON (certainly very rude to present one’s bare buttocks to public view)
24 BIDET BID (offer) ET (ExtraTerrestrial, out of this world)
25 KNOX Sounds like KNOCKS (attacks) for  John Knox (1514-1572) the Scottish theologian who founded Presbyterianism in Scotland and wrote a history of the Reformation in Scotland 
++++++++++++++
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram

19 comments on “Times 25,309 – The House of Knocks”

  1. I made steady progress but struggled to complete the NW where I didn’t know MALAR or DES MOINES, and the SE where I had a problem finding a foothold. I got there in the end in 3 minutes under the hour.

    I think the writer reference is more likely to be Eric: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Linklater

    Edited at 2012-11-01 02:10 am (UTC)

  2. 31 minutes for this. Not much to say except that I learnt what word means ‘pertaining to the cheek’ and also that a medic is typically, in Britain, a trainee, to add to my recently gained knowledge (obtained through the excellent HBO series Band of Brothers) that in the US it is (always?) a paramedic.

    The author is more likely to be Eric Linklater, who though born in Wales was of Orcadian heritage on his father’s side.

    When I spent a month 25 years ago now on the beautiful island of Gairsay, on trips to the Mainland (i.e. the main island of the group) I would invariably bump into a Linklater or two. Breed like rabbits up there…

    1. Agreed. Quite apart from being more widely known, it has to be Eric because Andro is not dead and today is not Sunday!
  3. Struggled something shocking in the SE corner, not knowing the author and assuming LEAFLETER; which, in turn, banjaxed 20dn. Wondered then about TON as “fashion set”; not THE TON? Also about ET as an adjective and not the horrid creature in the stupid film. Now … I guess … for the Monthly which is also out today. (Userpic re 13ac.)
  4. 22 minutes after a very slow start (nothing in the NW before ROOD and a tentative bird at 3d called a TIAR) and a slowish finish in the SE, apparently so far common experience.
    Those Linklaters certainly get around. I was aware of the law firm, but apparently there’s a US film director, and a Peter of that ilk turned up as quartermaster on the Bounty. Just assumed there’d be a writer or two.
    RINGTONE is as fine a hidden as you’d hope to see. CoD.
  5. A slightly breathless 27 minutes. Last in crow after trying to justify coot. Though John Knox is of course the theologian intended I had the 20th-century Ronald Knox in mind. There’s a lovely anecdote from the precocious little blighter’s childhood in Evelyn Waugh’s biography of him, walking on the beach at the age of about four with assorted classically educated adults. One of them says, “When they spied the Black Sea from Mount [something or other] did the Greek army call out O Thalatta! or O Thalassa!” [Story from Xenophon; either word is the old Greek for sea.] The little wretch pipes up, “The latter!” Cue a raging incoming tide.

    Edited at 2012-11-01 10:44 am (UTC)

    1. O dear, now you’ve given our beloved setters a cue for some more excruciating soundalikes. And we’d be arguing over whether the little Leicestershire b….. was rhotic enough at the tender age to have pronounced his Rs properly.
  6. Glad to hear our NY friends are all safe. This took a while to get into, probably not helped by the fact that I was trying to eat an extremely juicy pear at the same time. Finished in 15 mins, held up mostly by the SE corner.
  7. 15:42 for a chewy and enjoyable puzzle. Like others I thought ringtone was excellent.

    Positive vibes on way to our online friends on the Eastern seaboard.

  8. 17:29 .. very slow to see SANDCASTLE and CLASS ACT – both neat clues, as is the hidden RINGTONE (memorable surface).

    Flew back to the eastern seaboard on Monday and were lucky to be coming just north of the storm. In fact, the freak winds took almost an hour off our journey. All sympathies to those in the affected areas. Mind you, when we got something similar here in 2003 we met more neighbours in a week than we had in the previous few years, so it wasn’t without its upside. Shared adversity, and all that.

  9. 11:19 on the club timer: I seem to have been on the wavelength for this one. Although I found it easy I also liked it a lot.
    LINKLATER was the only out-and-out unknown today, but words like MALAR and ASTROLABE don’t exactly leap instantly to mind.
    Glad to hear our NYC chapter is starting to emerge safely.
  10. A slow shared experience with son Robert today around 40 minutes. A mixture of the very easy and the very obscure with some pleasing surfaces. Regards to our NY members; our thoughts are with you. Thanks for very informative blog.
  11. 44 minutes but one wrong (the wordplay said MALAR, but my internal dictionary refused to believe it and said MOLAR, where the teeth are, I assumed. Well, anyway, LARM for ALARM is OK in Swedish, and MO for maiden, couldn’t that be a maiden over, whatever that might be?). Dramatic days in New York, which I have been following with free access to the New York Times (they’re just uptown from 40th Street, so they have electric power by now, I suppose). I am glad our friends from the blog are all safe.
  12. Started but didn’t finish this late last night, but it came together quickly in the morning. 28 across one of my favorite clues in a long time. MALAR from wordplay, and I have to admit I was thinking of ART LINKLETTER for the writer, but a LINKLATER was looming somewhere in the back of the mind.
  13. 12:01 for me. Looking back over it, I’m not sure why I was so slow (apart from trying to make an anagram of “a meal” and “some” at 2dn). Must have been a combination of tiredness and failing to find the setter’s wavelength.

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