Times 25,333 – Mull of Kintyre

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
After that TNT Crack a fortnight ago, today’s puzzle seemed quite benign but not without its own challenges here, there and everywhere. Many lovely surfaces to entertain and amuse
Shortly, I will be travelling to China with my siblings to visit the house where our late father was born. I hope Andy Wallace remembers to appoint someone to serve as locum tenens for Times 25,345
ACROSS
1 ILLUSTRATIONS Ins of US (American) T (last letter of government) RATION (helping)  in ILLS (troubles)
9 VISTA Ins of IS in VT A (rev of A TV, television)
10 POLONAISE *(SOLE PIANO) for a stately Polish dance tune, in 3-4 measure, beginning always on the beat with a quaver followed by a crotchet, and closing on the beat after a strong accent on the second beat; also, a dance adapted to such music; a polacca.
11 SPACE CADET Ins of PAC ECA (rev of ACE CAP, top hat) in rev of TED’S (chap’s)
12 CHEF Ins of HE (fellow) in CF (first letters of cooking food)
1 MARLOWEMARLON Brando minus N plus West East (directions) for Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era
16 TEA TREE THEATRE (drama) minus H (husband) plus E (eastern, oriental)
17 NOTICED N (name) OTIC (of the ear, listener) ED (editor)
19 SCANDAL SCAN (read) DAL (rev of LAD, young man)
20 BRIG BRING (transport) minus N (indefinite number) for a two-masted, square-rigged vessel
21 PAPER CHAIN Ins of A PERCH (pole) in PAIN (smart) This clue was so well written that it took me quite a while to see SMART as the embracing fodder
24 NAILS DOWN Ins of AIL (trouble) in North & South plus County DOWN,  one of six counties that form Northern Ireland
25 INAPT Cha of I NAP (bet) & T (tee-shirt)
26 GREATER LONDON *(ENLARGED OR NOT) Delightful surface befitting an &lit. My COD
DOWN
1 INVESTMENT BANK IN (among) VEST (top as in attire) MEN (people) + ins of B (billions) in TANK (repository)
2 LASSA LASTS (continues) minus T (temperature) + A for the lassa fever, an infectious tropical virus disease, often fatal, transmitted by rodents.
STAGECOACHQuite self-explanatory wordplay for Stagecoach, a 1939 American Western film directed by John Ford, starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne in his break-through role
4 REPLACE REPLY (comeback) minus Y plus ACE of hearts or diamonds (red card, perhaps)
5 TALLEST Ins of ALL (everyone) in TEST (exam)
6 OINK A tichy way to say “no more ink” (problem for calligrapher) O-INK which reminds me of Peppa Pig, the favourite of my granddaughter who would insist on me playing and replaying episodes of the adventures of the porcine family
7 SWITHERED SWI (London district for Victoria – station, perhaps) + THE + RED (traffic light)
8 BEEF WELLINGTON Ins of F (female) W (with) EL (Spanish definite article) LING (fish) in BEETON for a dish of beef covered in pate and baked in pastry. Isabella Mary Beeton (née Mayson) (1836–1865), universally known a Mrs Beeton, was the English author of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, and is one of the most famous cookery writers.
13 Anagram of CHAIRMAN SO deliberately omitted This liqueur is distilled from fermented juice of bitter wild marasca cherries
15 Anagram of IN GRANITE also deliberately omitted
18 DEAL OUT D (first letter of drugs) E (ecstasy) A LOUT (yoobo)
19 STEINER Ins of IN (trendy) in STEER (guide) fo Rudolf Steiner 1861–1925), Austrian philosopher, educator, and mystic, founder of anthroposophy
22 AWARD A + WARD (rev of DRAW, sweep as in lottery)
23 ISLE rha The Isle of Mull or simply Mull — is the second largest island of the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute. While you are at it, have another listen to Paul McCartney’s Mull Of Kintyre (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5626WzsfMw)
++++++++++++++
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

TNT Crack = tough nut to crack 
 

22 comments on “Times 25,333 – Mull of Kintyre”

  1. Had to stop the clock a few times to check on storm damage from last night; so no precise time. Had the devil with some parsings: SPACE CADET, PAPER CHAIN and BEEF WELLINGTON in particular. Never heard of SWITHERED; but the anagrams and a few obvious literals helped.

    One interesting effect of smoking: Steiner’s Waldorf Schools were so named because of a lecture he gave on education principles at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart. Maybe the schools should come with a health warning: Anthroposophy can damage your brain.

    Another listen to Mull of Kintyre? Never completed the first listen; had to turn it off after a couple of seconds out of sheer embarrassment. Amazing what you can get out of hitting a few of the black notes at random.

    Edited at 2012-11-29 02:41 am (UTC)

  2. 30 minutes for all but SPACE CADET and another 7 to crack that. Never heard of SWITHERED or STEINER other than Max of “Gone With the Wind” fame. OINK was excellent.

  3. 16:34 .. this one seemed to exercise some different parts of the grey matter and is none the worse for it. Enjoyable solve. Another vote for OINK. What fun!

    Same dilemma as vinyl1 at the end and also guessed SWITHERED on similar grounds. I guessed it was northern English but dictionaries seem to point north of the border. Can any Scots confirm that?

    1. It’s a word Vallaw (on the Forum and occasionally here) sometimes uses when hesitating over a clue and I think she may be a Newcastle-dweller. Anyway that’s where I picked it up. 22 minutes after dithering about with CONFEDERATION and DAISY CHAIN. Very nice puzzle. P.S. I see Kevin was another DAISY person.

      Edited at 2012-11-29 11:26 am (UTC)

  4. I should have listened to my conscience and cleaned off the work on my desk before trying this. As it was, I rushed through it without thinking about parses, flung in ‘daisy chain’ (despite qualms about the pole), thus making 19d impossible. DNF, 2 wrong. DNK NAP, and never heard of Steiner, but it would have been easy enough with a correct 21ac. COD to OINK, but I also liked MARLOWE (‘detailed directions’ beautifully misleading). I’m glad I wasn’t the only one wondering about SWITHERED (my often reliable Japanese dictionary lists it as Scots).
  5. 25 minutes steady solve for a strange mix of a puzzle.

    I had to work SPACE CADET out from wordplay and checkers and still can’t quite reconcile “eccentric” as the definition. Also STEINER although I feel I’ve come across him before but can’t place where. I knew SWITHERED – a classic Mephisto word which is indeed Scots.

    There are some good surface readings here, such as 26A highlighted by UY. Like others I really enjoyed OINK

  6. 19 minutes. SWITHERED, previously unknown this far south is such a delightful word that I will endeavour to bring it into conversation as soon as possible. Definite portmanteau overtones.
    OINK is the most obvious CoD, so it might as well be mine.
    SPACE CADET as slang for one high on drugs is probably now so dated it will only turn up in crosswords. I agree with Jim that “eccentric” is a bit of a stretch, and I only put it in once I could make the cryptic work. Took some doing.
    1. Collins has: n slang – a person who is eccentric or out of touch with reality, as if affected by drugs.
  7. SPACE CADET took a good 4 minutes as my LOI – I’ve always thought of it as a drug-related term, so the definition in the clue was little help. SWITHERED a new word for me.
  8. 30 minutes for all bar space cadet. Eventually entered space cased (Des, geddit?) from the cryptic – well, okay, my cryptic.

    Rudolf Steiner was the founder of Anthroposophism, an offshoot of Theosophism. CS Lewis’s great friend Owen Barfield was an adherent from his mid 20s. Lewis always maintained that he could make head nor tail of this particular religio-philosophy.

  9. 33m, excluding a break in the middle to take a phone call. I found this really tough, particularly at the end where I spent about 15 minutes on the STEINER/PAPER CHAIN crossing. Like others I couldn’t get DAISY CHAIN out of my head.
    I also thought “eccentric” was a dodgy definition for SPACE CADET, and I still do, but as it’s in Collins my beef is with them not the setter.
    Just after I hit submit it suddenly dawned on me that “Victoria district” was SW and SLITHERED was wrong. Oh well.

    Edited at 2012-11-29 01:10 pm (UTC)

  10. Finished all but SPACE CADET in 20 minutes, having guessed SWITHERED (not surprised to learn it is Scottish). Still not convinced by the def. eccentric. OINK was best clue and my FOI.
  11. Couldn’t get all of this done at first sight, so struggled through a few sittings. My bugbear was 19 down which started as DOLE OUT then became DOSE OUT and finally DEAL OUT as all that remained was 21 across and nothing seemed to fit. SWITHERED from an inspired guess and BEEF WELLINGTON without thinking about wordplay, however funnily enough, headsmack when I saw the blog, since I had to look up Mrs B for an earlier blog.
  12. First post, but long time lurker.
    I try to do the puzzle every day, very occasionally I finish it. Almost did it today, apart from SPACE CADET. This took most of the day, but I’m getting better, honest!
    Anyway, I just wanted to say how invaluable this blog is, many thanks to all involved.

    best regards
    Adrian

    1. Welcome Adrian – hope to hear a lot more from you. Never be shy of asking any question. However long we’ve been doing these puzzles we can all remember what it was like to start with.
  13. Hi Adrian – nice to hear from you. You have no idea how many years it took for me to get anywhere near soso at these. Space cadet was hard and if it didn’t pop into your head quickly it was a slog. Also many of us had a rather different meaning for it. I always thought it meant a complete ditz rather than an eccentric. Sorry to use you as a guinea pig but I’m trying out a new userpic (me and my late dad doing the crossword) and I have a feeling it won’t work. P.S. It doesn’t.

    Edited at 2012-11-29 08:42 pm (UTC)

  14. I’m another who’s never heard of SWITHERED. But it was guessible from the cryptic if you know your London districts. SPACE CADET held me up for about 6 minutes – which is an awfully long time to stare at one clue. I’d forgotten the phrase and anyway I didn’t think it meant “eccentric”. I think it’s the influence of Robert Heinlein and “Starship Troopers”. I’m inclined to read the term literally. 26 minutes.
  15. Work has kept me away from more timely postings, sorry. About 30 minutes ending with the unknown SWITHERED. OINK was very good. Had never heard of STEINER either, but he was more accessible than the hesitation. Regards.
  16. 10:08 here for a most enjoyable puzzle with first-rate surface readings.

    SPACE CADET was my LOI. I thought of it quite quickly, but 7dn about it as I hadn’t come across it meaning “eccentric”.

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