Times 25339 – can you cope?

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 15:34 on the club timer – very slow start to this one, really only getting the top left corner on a first read through, and then sweeping through the bottom and finishing off on the right hand side. There’s two better times than me on the crossword club already, so I suspect I was just not on the setters wavelength, as I think everything makes sense now.

I was relieved that the Y in 14 across was checked, as it is a word that is spelled one way in the US and another way in the UK, and I was unsure of which was which and also of the spelling in the wordplay.

Public service announcement, my fellow Thursday blogger Uncle Yap is gone next Thursday so you’re stuck with me for a few weeks.

Away we go!

Across
1 CHERRY(one stoned), PICKER(elector): rather a fun clue to get us going, though I didn’t get it until most of the checking letters were in place
8 OSTRICH: alternating letters in dOeSnT then RICH
9 ARC LAMP: CLAM in (c)ARP
11 our across omission, if you look hard you might find it
12 ELITIST: SIT in TILE all reversed
13 SIEVE: I in SEVE(n)
14 SPARE, TYRE: TYRE is in what is now Lebanon, and I’d heard of it but I was glad I didn’t have to spell it
16 ENTANGLED: ANGLE in (TEND)*
19 POLYP: Y(end of CHARDONNAY) in PLOP reversed
21 TANK TOP: double def
23 LINOCUT: I got this from the definition, but now I see the wordplay – it’s OUT(off) with C(100) inside, and before that LIN(e). Tricksy!
24 SUNBURN: end of exhaustioN, RUB,NUS all reversed
25 SHAW,NEE: brave as in American Indian
26 NYMPHOMANIAC: (CHAMPION,MANY) – hope everyone else smiled at the definition
 
Down
1 COT,ERIE
2 EPITOME: EPI(c),TOME
3 REHEARSAL: HEARS(tries) in REAL(concrete)
4 PLANE: the aircraft and the tree
5 COCAINE: CO(carbon monoxide – poisonous gas),CAIN(original kille),E
6 EDACITY: IT in (DECAY)*
7 COMPOS MENTIS: loved this clue – definition is ALL THERE, so it’s IS under MEN in COMPOST
10 PITTER-PATTER: or PITA PATTER
15 ANDALUSIA: AND(accompanying),A,LUSITANIA(doomed liner) missing TAN,I
17 TENANCY: TE (outside of THE) then NANCY
18 our down omission, likely given away by the enumeration
19 PUN,JAB,I
20 LACONIC: CON(party) in LAIC
22 PINTO: NIP reversed then TO

38 comments on “Times 25339 – can you cope?”

  1. 10 down surely should be a middle eastern bakery. Indian bread is naan, chapati etc. it is the middle east and north africa that eats pitta.
    1. Indeed, and you beat me to it. None of the usual sources supports Indian. Wiki mentions that pitta bread is eaten in parts of the Indian sub-continent, but only as an afterthought and it’s not listed as a place of origin.

      Edited at 2012-12-06 01:51 am (UTC)

  2. Don’t think there’s a genuine giveaway in the whole puzzle; and loads of possibilities for the apparently ordinary words in the clues. Thanks to George for the explanation of OSTRICH which I couldn’t see for the life of me.

    After reviewing a few back puzzles, have reached the conclusion that I go OK when there’s lots of proper names linked to basic general knowledge. When not, not. So today, only ANDALUSIA, SHAWNEE and the city part of 14ac qualified. (Of which, what is “booted” in this context?)

    LOI was PLANE (4dn). Couldn’t be shifted from a favourite bird (and wine!): The Barking Owl.

    1. I presumed booted was that the spare tyre was in the boot (trunk, but then it would be a tire)
      1. Sounds likely. Wouldn’t have thought of that. The spare on my ute is strapped under the tray!
  3. I had a real struggle with this one, mainly trying to get a foothold in each quarter. Once I had some checkers to work with each section fell rapidly into place.

    66 minutes was bad news though, particularly after taking an hour yesterday.

    23 was a beast to parse and I didn’t quite get it all despite understanding ‘print’, ‘hundred parts’ and ‘business shortly’.

    Edited at 2012-12-06 01:49 am (UTC)

  4. Liked this a lot, even though I crawled in just one minute ahead of Jack. The two ‘model’ answers, the two 1 clues, the woman who likes a bit of ‘the other’ (slang for sex, in case anyone’s wondering), the compost heap clue, the barking flier. In the circumstances, I’m willing to overlook a little leaven in the lump.

    Never heard of my LOI, edacity.

    Edited at 2012-12-06 03:11 am (UTC)

  5. 12:09 but with one mistake, LINECUT for 23 across after only half-parsing the wordplay. Presumably there is an appropriate authority for 10 down, but it certainly struck an odd note to my ear (the Indian cooking website I use most regularly has a recipe involving stuffed pitta bread, which adds a note that people in India can substitute naan bread, which at least suggests that it isn’t considered a completely native dish by them…)

    26 across certainly raised a smile, though as I’m up nice and early to watch the cricket, I was smiling already. No mention from Sir Geoffrey of his lunch yet; I wonder what sort of bread it contained.

  6. All in all a challenging and enjoyable 25 minutes with the bread the only real black mark. It didn’t really slow me up because I had P-T-E as initial checkers so then solved from definition. What happened to the quality control department on that one?

    There are some excellent clues here and some slightly “unusual” words like CHERRY PICKER but the definition at 26A is excellent and made me laugh out loud. That meant I had to provide an explanation for Mrs Jimbo who gave me that special female “men!” look

  7. 16:39 on the club timer. This was my kind of puzzle: some quite tricksy wordplay, but nothing I didn’t know other than EDACITY. I think indifferent general knowledge is the thing that slows me down most or (as was the case yesterday) defeats me altogether. Fortunately the more I do these things the better my GK gets. Sometimes I think that if I didn’t do crosswords I wouldn’t know anything at all.
    It seems to me that putting pita bread in India must just be a mistake, because putting it in the right place wouldn’t do any harm to the surface.
  8. 42.57 so a slow one for me with the NW holding me up for 15m plus! Still don’t really understand 1ac – is it just high as in up a tree or is there some link to one who only chooses the best I’m missing? Otherwise agree with comments on 10d and also that 26 was amusing and my COD.
    1. A cherry-picker is a type of crane with a platform on the end of the arm, used for inspection of (say) streetlights. Hence a worker would be high when on it.
  9. Right up my street this – a speedy and enjoyable 10:03.

    Edacity was unknown but couldn’t really be owt else and I didn’t know Shawnee but threw it in on the basis 1) that I’ve come across Pawnee in crosswords and 2) that the paywright is Shaw 99 times out of 100.

    I, too, had a big QM against the pitta/indian thingy.

  10. Found this easier than yesterday’s despite Compos Mentis being LOI which meant I had to work hard to solve the left hand acrosses without any helpful starting letters. FOI Shawnee.

    Years ago on my gap year between school and university I spent three months in Israel working on a kibbutz near Beersheba. One of many farming jobs I did was picking avocados. After we’d handpicked the low hanging fruit we took to cherry pickers to reach the higher ups.

    Re: pita, naan and chapatti. Devotees of The Great British Bake Off will be interested to hear that Paul Hollywood has his own series (“Bread”) starting in the New Year.

  11. Was just catching up on yesterday’s blog and was surprised to see so many claiming no prior knowledge of shaw as a wood. It came up as recently as September this year and before that we had it in March 2011 (once as copse and once as thicket).

    Must be one of those words that dwells in the blind spot of many solvers.

    1. I see that I did the puzzle but didn’t get a chance to read the blog properly or comment when it came up in September. I probably just bunged in the answer on definition. Just goes to show how useful this blog is when you use it properly, although of course I might still have forgotten it.
  12. tried to sign up today without success. Apparently my user name conflicts with my password, no matter how different they are! Or they contain invalid characters (which they don’t, of course).

    Am I stupid, or is the sign-up form?

    Cheers
    Chris Gregory.

    1. Is this Live Journal or the Crossword Club? If the latter, nobody will be surprised, if the former, that doesn’t sound like a problem others have had…
  13. About 23 minutes but with the regular slapdash typo (PINJABI today).

    Really entertaining puzzle but I got myself in a terrible mess by deciding that 7d had to be ‘corpus’ something and spending a long time trying to think of plausible complements.

    Must admit I didn’t notice the PITA placement problem (should it be Middle Eastern or Greek bakery?). Probably too busy smiling at NYMPHOMANIAC, for which many thanks to the setter.

    1. I was another CORPUS person. I felt so stupid when the penny dropped. I also boobed badly on ANDALUSIA by spelling it with a “C” (Presumably thinking of Santa Lucia) in spite of the fact that I recently did a tour of the place! I wasted ages looking for a playwright C??? to go with the NEE at 25a. Finally pegged out in 36 minutes. (Btw,Sotira, am currently reading Robert B Parker’s take on Philip Marlowe “Poodle Springs”. Not Chandler but entertaining nonetheless) Ann
      1. Had the C as well… turns out that’s how it’s spelled in Spanish, so some slight justification.

        But embarrassingly I saw the (Lusitania – tan,i) bits and didn’t think about how to spell Lusitania, even though Iknow it’s an S.
        Rob

  14. Again a slow lumbering trot round in 44 minutes. The definition for 19 ac. is painfully light, no pun intended. I wonder when edacity was last used naturally? I too love the other champion, as a subsidiary part of the surface.
  15. A whizz through in 15 minutes as far as all but 25 ac, had C-A-N-E, spent a while searching for obscure Indian tribes before realising that ANDALUSIA is spelt with an S not a C. Silly boy. My CoD was COCAINE although CO carbon monoxide is a bit loose as a ‘toxic thing’. Is a gas a thing? Nice new pic jimbo (and mrs I presume).
  16. I am an Indian and an addict of the Times puzzle and this site. Love reading all your comments. Pitta is not Indian, never has been, it is Middle Eastern, most likely Lebanese, certainly from the Med area. It threw me that clue.
    1. Lovely to have your company.

      I sometimes browse the Times of India, just for a different perspective on the world (especially when there’s a test series in progress!).

      Most sources seem to suggest that the word ‘pitta/pitta’ is Greek in origin but was borrowed by the Arab languages then dropped by them. It’s still used in Greece so I think, as ever, it’s the Greeks who have a word for it.

    2. I live within 200 yards of about a dozen “Indian” eateries, mostly run by Bangladeshis. They certainly don’t serve pitta bread. It seems to be a rare mistake by the setter. ( But I can always get my burger in pitta bread from my local Iraqi takeaway!)Ann
  17. A quick query re 22 down. Is it really NIP reversed? Could it not just be PIN (= tack) over (= above) TO?
    1. Good spot. That’s how I parsed it but I hadn’t noticed that George saw it differently.
  18. Slow start but got through in 20-25 minutes, LOI being the unknown EDACITY. I agree just above, re “pin’=”tack’, which was how I read it. Like others, amazed that the setter could find an anagram for NYMPHOMANIAC, and fit it into a clue that makes some sense. Well done. Regards to all.
  19. Oh dear! I simply never found the setter’s wavelength, and struggled to a miserable 19:49. Tiredness was a major contributor, so I accidentally typed in ELITISM, and bunged in LUSITANIA (hoping that I might be able to parse it properly later), and spent the last five minutes on PLANE!!!
  20. 41′, slowed down by, e.g., tossing in ‘Bengali’ unthinkingly, which then blocked anything else, such as the correct language. Didn’t notice the pita problem, being occupied with irritation at the quasi-homophony. Nice to see a new photo of Jimbo; now I can see what he looks like!

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