Times 25,319 from the Civil War to Nam

Solving time 15 minutes

My thanks to Tim for swapping with me two weeks ago and fielding the DBE puzzle.

This one was kind to me being relatively straightforward but with some good wordplays to unravel. I can’t see anything in it to get too worked up about.

Across
1 ATLANTIS – AT LAST = finally then change direction S to N + I’S = one’s; Plato’s imaginary place in the Atlantic;
5 TROPIC – T(R)OPIC; Cancer and Capricorn;
9 NEWSREEL – NEWS=all points + REEL sounds like “real”; created by Pathé Frères, they preceeded the main film;
10 VERIFY – REV reversed – IF – Y(outh); what one did after punching cards before reading them into Flossie;
12 FOR,PETE’S,SAKE – reference Disney character Peg-Leg Pete; an old phrase replaced today by shorter epithets;
15 ALIBI – hidden (beng)ALI-BI(stro); does Chris Patten have one?;
16 ROUNDHEAD – Spooner’s “hound read”; Cromwellian Tommy;
18 BAKSHEESH – (b+he+she+ask)*; almost a way of life in say Egypt;
19 FRILL – F(lowing)-RILL;
20 UNOFFICIALLY – UN-OFF-ICI-ALLY; a French=UN; friend=ALLY; going=OFF; here in Paris=ICI; officieusement;
24 INKPOT – (to pink)*; when I was at school each desk had an INKPOT in it for use with steel knib pens – biros were banned;
25 STRANDED – two meanings; 1=like rope; 2=George Entwistle;
26 ENTITY – E-N(TIT)Y; singer=bird;
27 EDITRESS – TIDE reversed – RE=on – SS=ship; Rebekah Brooks no doubt;
 
Down
1 ANNA – Karenina; weak clue;
2 LAWN – two meanings; 1=linen fabric; 2=well maintained piece of grass;
3 NARROWISH – N-ARROW-IS-H; new=N; husband=H; back to the Roundheads;
4 INEXPERIENCE – IN-EX-P(IRE reversed)ENCE;
6 REEDS – sounds like “reads”; stops as in organ pipes;
7 PHILATELIC – PHI-LATE-L-IC; strange hobby shared by FDR and John Lennon;
8 CLYDESDALE – CLYDE-(leads)*; huge horses that used to pull the brewers drays;
11 STOUT-HEARTED – ST(OUT-HE)ARTED; HE=High Explosive; ten such men will produce ten thousand more;
13 TAMBOURINE – (but in a more)*; Morris Dancers are virtuosos;
14 PICKPOCKET – PICK-POCK-E-(coas)T; “a dip” is old London slang for a type of tealeaf;
17 DEFOLIANT – (fined a lot)*; elders are trees; Agent Orange;
21 FLOAT – two meanings; 1=aimlessly move; 2=an obscure trowel;
22 EDGE – “on edge” is ill at ease;
23 ODDS – ODD-S; saint=S; betters are punters;

39 comments on “Times 25,319 from the Civil War to Nam”

  1. Wish I had timed this to the second as it is probably a PB, but under 7:30 as a worst case. Just couldn’t fill them in quickly enough! After Friday’s, which unlike many of you out there wasn’t really to my taste, and took forever, this morning’s was some relief! Thanks to the setter for making life a little rosier.
  2. Welcome back Jim. Pity you weren’t with me on the massive DBE event. I got trounced in your absence. Also wondered what you may have thought about (singular) “fatigue” = CHORE in 25316 (18ac). I thought it was like being on one janker! Also thought you may well have passed BANANA BOAT SONG, the cryptic def at 22ac in 25313, despite our mutual dislike of the type in general.

    Annoyed at not breaking the 10 today with perhaps the easiest puzzle of the year … now duly assigned to the /Nursery_Slopes directory.

    The only vocab problems might be the organ stops (6dn) and the trowel (21dn). But with the checkers, that would merely turn them into a vocab lesson. Nice anagram at 17dn (NOT DEFLATION!)

    1. I think trounced is a bit strong. I thought you defended Macnutt’s position rather well but I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help.

      I was a bit puzzled by “fatigue” but got the boat song without any problems. The one that raised far fewer hackles than I thought it might was the tripe about “get them in singles”

  3. 9m. A nice easy one, with quite a few bunged straight in from definition and/or checkers and parsed later. The trowel was the only unknown, but obvious from checkers.
  4. I’d like to say I wasn’t on the wavelength but it’s probably that I’m just slow. I also have the excuse that Peg-Leg Pete has eluded me for, at any rate, the first 53 years of my life. Last in FRILL after CLYDESDALE fell victim to my failing to include ‘CLY-‘ in my little list of possible beginnings.
  5. 26 minutes. “Peg-Leg Pete” only remembered after finding the answer and “float” unknown as plasterer’s tool but otherwise nothing very demanding.

    I remember inkpots at school as described by Jim. We had to make up the ink using powder and water.

  6. 15 minutes, with the crossing pair of NARROWISH (a word made up to fit the space, see Chambers under -ish)) and Peg-Leg Pete – jamais couché avec. Perhaps also complicated because I live with an amputee, which broadens the available vocabulary considerably. Had to do an alphabet job on P_T_S, which obviously didn’t take that long. Not being sure of ATLANTIS, having entered on definition alone didn’t help either.
    The rest pretty easy, and a CoD Spoonerism to raise a smile as well.
    Didn’t know a jingle was especially one of those discs on a tambourine. Now I do.
    Welcome back, Jim – as ever, esoteric, entertaining and evocative additions to the mechanics of explanation. Où sont les encriers d’hier?
    1. Just discussing the same with a friend today. Should we not say “d’antan” after Villon?
  7. The age game again. We had inkpots (called inkwells) but biros weren’t invented until after I had started work, as an office boy I was despatched to buy one for the managing director, I think it cost £2 10s a lot more than my weekly wage!
  8. Under half an hour.

    11 down. I share Jim’s recollection of the song from New Moon but, I’m ashamed to say, mainly because Morecambe and Wise famously murdered it in their 1973 Christmas show. (5’ 40’’ in).

    Hope this link doesn’t send my comment to the spam bin.

    1. Unfortunately it did, but I’ve rescued it. Perhaps you could post links in separate messages in future and I or one of the other bloggers will unspam them as and when we see them, but at least your main post would show up immediately.

      As far as I’m aware this is the way the LJ filter settings work and there are no moves afoot to change anything. The benefit of filtering out real spam is too great not to take advantage of the defences available, imo.

        1. Interesting. Are their any other advantages that would affect my activities here? I don’t use LJ for anything else.
          1. What I meant is: LJ subscribers can post comments including links without their comments being marked as spam.
            1. Thanks. Yes, I understood that but I just wondered what other advantages there might be in having a paid LJ account. I’ve looked into it now and it seems to boil down to more storage space and more user pics.
  9. My parsing would be: B{ishop} … then … anagram of “he/she/ask”. Not a lot of difference from Jim’s reading. But may be important for the beginners I’ve recommended this puzzle to?
    1. Your parsing will produce the correct answer but only because BAK… starts with a B. The same clue as in the paper would give the answer HABSHEEKS (if such a word existed) but your parsing would not.
      1. Isn’t B for bishop (chess) standard fare? If so, my parsing makes the clue a bit simpler, given that both clue and answer start with B. I’m suggesting a simple lift and separate between “Bishop” and “he”. I rather think your parsing (where all the letters of B,HE,SHE,ASK are in play) could lead to the hypothetical “HABSHEEKS”.

        Edited at 2012-11-13 10:36 pm (UTC)

  10. 45.21 here of which some 15!! were spent on 3d and 12a. Only when I considered that the s might have an apostrophe did I twig the answer. However not knowing the cartoon – thanks to blogger for that and other enlightenment – and not really seeing that the possible answer could mean ‘give it a rest’ I spent another 5 minutes pondering further until with a ‘for pete’s sake’ I bunged it in. 3d was then obvious but I thought a bit weak too. I should also confess to 3 minutes wrestle with ‘like rope’ as the an ageist for ‘shore’! Sigh!
  11. 11:36 but quite enjoyable for a straightforward puzzle. Couldn’t remember, or never knew, the Disney character, which left me weighing up the chances of there being someone called Peg-Leg Pity (conclusion: not as likely as Pete).
  12. 14:17 .. so an easier puzzle but not a gimme in these quarters.

    Spent quite a while struggling with various spellings of ‘philately’, trying to find a plausible tenth letter to stick in it, before finally rereading the clue.

    Didnae know the Disney, paused over the LAWN, and (for the umpteenth time) had to work out CLYDESDALE the hard way.

    I liked STRANDED and the Spoonerism.

  13. 15:05 – steady start, slow stop in the middle then full speed ahead to finish. I couldn’t see how Atlantis worked so was loathe to bung it in and I took far too long to get the Bonnie/Clyde connection.

    I was familiar with a plasterer’s float and knew of Peg Leg Pete but wasn’t aware he was a Disney character. The pickpocket started out as ????market, that dip you have with Cromer crab.

  14. 11 minutes minutes – enjoyably straightforward with a couple of sneaky ones just to reduce complacency on the part of the solver.
  15. Welcome back Jimbo.

    A steady solve in fits and starts this morning with no major hold ups but no instances where I solved several clues one after another. FOI Anna and LOI Narrowish where the “slightly intolerant” meaning puzzled me a little. I thought Atlantis was a city not a land – must read about it on wiki.

    Liked the Roundhead and Inkpot. Inkpot brought to mind the ritual in my first few years at secondary school of filling my fountain pen each night from a Quink inkpot after I’d done my homework.

  16. 38 enjoyable minutes. Didn’t know LAWN as a fabric and didn’t put INKPOT in for a while as it seemed too obvious. Badly mutilated the English language trying to stretch Philately across 10 letters until I saw ‘of’.
    Quink inkpots bring back memories from far too long ago.
  17. 30 minutes, had to refer to Mrs K to confirm LAWN was a fabric, and was unenthusiastic about EDITRESS although nowt else was going to fit, the others flowed nicely.
  18. I too wondered about editress. Can’t see the Times using authoress though you never know. 20 minutes, on the easy side with a touch of tricky edge. 13 recalled the song I forgive Dylan all else for, Hey Mr Tambourine Man with its jingle jangle morning, what is it with these songs, there aren’t many I like but the ones I do make it all a tad more worthwhile.
  19. Didn’t time it, but did it in a few minutes break waiting for an intro for a presentation to end, so must have been close to 10. EDITRESS went in without thinking of wordplay.
  20. Pretty quickly done here, with the only trouble on parsing EDITRESS, and thinking up the internal weapon in NARROWISH. I knew the FLOAT immediately but as a mason’s tool, it being the long handled thing that a mason uses to establish a smooth finish on exposed concrete as it’s drying. Same principle for the plasterer I suppose, although real plastering is a lost art over here. Regards to all.
  21. 7:38 for me – slowed slightly by accidentally clicking on Print instead of Play now at the start, and rather more by agonising over FLOAT (which I don’t recall coming across before) at the end.

    I don’t recall coming across Peg-Leg Pete either, but he seemed plausible enough not to worry about.

  22. So desperate to get a PB under 20min that I threw in RATIFY and READS at 10 and 6 without fully considering the wordplay (also, more fortunately, with EDITRESS and PETE)
    Held up too by trying to figure out 9ac beginning with a V (must write more clearly)
    Overall, enjoyably quick but Friday’s 3hr wrestle (and all correct) was much more satisfying

    Variety is the key

    JB

  23. ‘Pity’s would also work with the def. Didn’t know about Pete but thought it the more likely. A Lurker
  24. Very impressed by you Brits trying to get ths done in under 15 minutes. It took me about 3 hours over 5 days to get most of the puzzle and I’m very happy with that!
  25. 21 minutes, fast for me, but the last few at the end on 2 dn. How on earth does that work:
    “May be cut in trips” = lawn? Trips in what sense?

    Rob

  26. 21 minutes, fast for me, but the last few at the end on 2 dn. How on earth does that work:
    “May be cut in trips” = lawn? Trips in what sense?

    Rob


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