Times 25340 – Too tough for me

Solving time: 57:56 – with three wrong!

I found this something of a struggle. There were several that I put in without full understanding as I went through, plus a couple of wild guesses. I got three wrong in total. One (13a) I spotted straightaway, but the other two (4/9) it took me quite a while to spot.

There were a number of words that were unknown to me – EVERT, MASH-TUN, LUNGI, PASHTUN, ANNAPURNA & DIXIES

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 CAGE = Composer + AGE – an &lit to start us off
3 CLOCK RADIO = CLIO (Greek Muse of history) about (DARK + CO) rev
9 MASH-TUN = M + pASHTUN – This was one of my incorrect answers. I went for MASH-TUB, thinking that the B was the opening of Brewer, and that the definition was just ‘vat’. In my defence a MASH-TUB is actually another name for a MASH-TUN.
11 IN-BOXES – I’m not sure of the wordplay here. I think it’s I (one) + N (new) + SEX (the other) + OB (he passed on, i.e. obituary) reversed. Thanks to Jack for the correction.
12 TWINKLING = TWIN KING about L
13 EVERTon – this was my second mistake. I went for EJECT from the definition alone. It was only after I submitted that I cottoned on to the ON removed from EVERTON idea. Besides, I’d never heard of EVERT before.
14 SCHMALTZIEST = (LISZT ETC HAS + M)*
18 ACADEMY AWARD = ACADEMY (school) + WARD (charge) about A
21 HIND + U – U is a good luck charm in as much as it looks like a horseshoe, I suppose
22 ANNAPURNA = ANN + (RAN UP A)*
24 COAL-TIT = COAT (jacket) about (LT + I)
25 B + ED + TIME – a well-disguised definition
26 OUT OF ORDER = OUT (to expose) + O (old) + FORDER (person crossing river)
27 BETA = “BEATER” – a computing term. A Beta Test version of a piece of software is the final test version before it is released.
Down
1 COMATOSE = I don’t get this one. COME (arrive) about (guards) ATOS must be ‘busy with ciphers’ but I don’t see why. It’s AT (busy with) + OS (ciphers, or 0s) I’ve not come across cipher meaning zero before. Thanks to Jack again who got in first with this one.
2 GASLIGHT = Gold + AS LIGHT (matching feather, as in ‘as light as a feather’)
4 LUNGIng – this was my third mistake. Having got 9a wrong, I had the wrong checker in place and took a wild stab at LOBBI, but I was never happy about Lobbing being ‘diving forward’
5 CLINGFILM = (FILLING)* in CM
6 RUBBERS + TAMPEreD
7 DI(XI)ES
8 ON-SITE – rev hidden
10 TAKE ACCOUNT OF – dd
15 TAD + CAST + ER – a Town in North Yorkshire
16 H + AIRLINE – a couple of well-disguised definitions
17 NDJAMENA = DJ in NAME + NA – I’m pretty good on my capital cities, so I got this one quite quickly. It’s the capital of the African country of Chad.
19 THICKO = THICK (as in ‘as thick as thieves’) + Officer
20 INFANT = IN FONT with the O replaced by A (both being blood groups)
23 NOt aBLE

34 comments on “Times 25340 – Too tough for me”

  1. 11ac. OB is short for ‘obiit’ = died
    1dn. Busy with = AT and Ciphers = 0S (zeros)

    A similar tale here except I didn’t get any wrong because I resorted to aids for the last two or three in the SE where I had become completely stuck. I simply didn’t know the capital or the ridge and was unable to unravel the wordplay.

    Before coming to an ignominious end I had been making steady if somewhat slow progress and felt I was achieving something despite a lot of answers going in not fully understood.I had been on course for a 40-45 minute solve but in the end I needed 70.

    I don’t see 1ac as &lit but rather as a literal plus wordplay that involves C doing double duty.

    I was going to query the definition at 3ac because a CLOCK RADIO isn’t ‘a wake-up call’, but then I tried reading it as “it HAS a wake-up call” and that seems to work.

    I was amused by SEX as ‘the other’ although perhaps it’s come round again rather too soon.

    Edited at 2012-12-07 03:57 am (UTC)


  2. 25:17 … a seriously clever puzzle. Some of the disguised definitions are terrific.

    I only got started by working at the multi-word clues. And I’ll admit to Googling N’DJAMENA before hitting ‘submit’.

    COD .. probably BEDTIME. That’s just great. I loved solving this. Thanks, setter. And thanks, Dave P, for taking the short straw with the sang froid one would fully expect of a man who blogs in black tie. And I’d like to thank the editor, and the subeditor, and the typographer, and all the wonderful people in the technical department, and the … [cut to commercials]

  3. “busy with” = “at” (at work, at play, et c.); ciphers = Os. (?)

    – Vince in Syracuse, NY

    1. Your comment caused me to read my earlier explanation of ‘AT’ again and I realised that in my haste I had omitted ‘with’ so I have added it now. 0 (zero) is one of the definitions of ‘cipher’.
  4. … after 45 minutes (had to go out), with BETA only pencilled in on the basis of the literal. Not confident at all about the parsing of that one.

    Not a puzzle for a day when time is limited — which it very rarely is these days.

  5. There is a typo in schmalTziest (which I couldn’t get because I had decided Lancaster was the northern town also ruining any chance of academy!) Thank you for a good blog.
  6. After 40+ minutes, I gave up with 3 missing and several others unexplained. My mood was not helped by the fact that the first one I solved was MASH-TUN which I confidently wrote in at 11 across! Looking at the leader board for the online solvers at The Times site tells it all (ignoring tamthesham of course)…

    1 tamthebamiam *3m, 35s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 882
    2 mistigris *12m, 8s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 839
    3 Spurius *22m, 8s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 789
    4 neilr *25m, 5s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 775
    5 sotira *25m, 17s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 774
    6 andyt *28m, 3s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 760
    7 zythum *29m, 59s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 750
    8 FunnyBunny *42m, 47s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 686
    9 cassandra *43m, 38s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 682
    10 Ben Ganly *48m, 13s Fri 7th Dec 2012 0 659

    (plagiarised from The Times at 08:18 GMT.

    1. Top of the leader board makes very interesting reading now (6 hours later) – a proper heavyweight clash at the top.
  7. 25:12.
    Super puzzle, this. I started reasonably quickly but then was slowed to a crawl by all the difficult ones. The SE corner was the hardest, where ANNAPURNA was only vaguely familiar and I didn’t know the capital. LUNGI, DIXIES and MASH TUN were new to me.
    I came quite close to inventing a fictional/mystical/religious trial called the KEPA at 27ac. Fortunately I kept thinking.

    Edited at 2012-12-07 08:45 am (UTC)

  8. This took me just over half an hour and I enjoyed the puzzle very much. One query only: classicist friend of mine always pronounces BETA to rhyme with “bater”, and that’s also the pronunciation I’ve heard in the USA.
  9. This was hard work with nearly every clue requiring concentrated effort. As McText says, not a puzzle to try when time is limited. 35 minutes for me with BETA causing me some problems and NDJAMENA checked on Google before entering in the grid.

    As far as “U” is concerned, under “horseshoe” Chambers gives “a representation of it as a symbol of good luck” so your parsing is correct Dave

  10. …but depressingly, I’d also heard of ADJACENT capitals, and the ‘final Test’ looked like I could have a *D*A*E*T pattern, and the puzzle was so tough I figured there must be something devious in the wordplay that I hadn’t seen yet…
  11. Gave up on the hour with the capital (didn’t know it and could only see adjacent), beta (which should have got from ‘raising game’) and eject at a guess for evert (which should have got from Everton). Down but not out as enjoyed the rest a lot and if had managed these three would have been prancing about like the nursery-rhyme cow, though even then it seems unable to keep up with sotira.
  12. I’m surprised that everybody so far seems happy with “opening” as a containment indicator.

    Andy B

    1. Seems okay to me. Something going inside something else may well open it out by displacement.
    2. Equally happy with it. I think you have to read it as an indicator of insertion or bisection rather than containment.
    3. It has been used before, though is by no means one of the most common ways of indicating an insertion.
  13. Retired hurt ( pride perhaps) on 58.50 just to avoid going over the hour. Lots to admire and even those I didn’t get were gettable even for me on a better day. Thanks for the excellent blog – even some I had got such as 1d were on a wing and a prayer. Hats off to setter today.
  14. 21:12 for a puzzle which could easily have been used in a Grand Final. You wouldn’t want one every day, but once in a while it’s good for the soul. A friend of mine who worked for Bass took us on a tour of the brewery years ago, and thus imprinted on my mind his arcane vocabulary of mash tuns, sparging arms and wort. Beer can be educational, too, you know.
    1. My soul having been thus tried and tested is in sore need of further acquaintance with the brewing industry – cheers! Thanks to all those hardened pros who cheered me up with tales of DNF – quite heartening to know I wasn’t struggling alone.
  15. Two missing today (Dixies and Beta). Wouldn’t have got Beta even with aids. Took a long time to get going with this one – my FOI was Out Of Order in the bottom left corner. Thought Infant was excellent.

    A friend of mine and his girlfriend trekked the Annapurna circuit in October, so that mountain came to mind readily given the jumble of As, Ns and a P.

    We’ve had the exotic capital before, here or in a Sunday Times puzzle. Probably clued in a very similar way. I wonder if Tony Sever would be able to tell us?

    1. Not in the Times cryptic – unless my short-to-medium-term memory is shot to hell. It could well have been in the Sunday Times puzzle though, as there are several of those I’ve missed. Perhaps Peter Biddlecombe will read this and provide the answer.
  16. My congratulations to anyone who finished this under the hour without aids. After about 90mins, I had got all bar 17d. Never having heard of the town, I was left with a toss-up between FDJAMENA and NDJAMENA, both of which fit the wordplay equally, and both of which seemed equally improbable. Eventually I plumped for FDJAMENA, sadly.
  17. This took 35 minutes before I used aids to get NDJAMENA, which was utterly unknown. I thought the homophone for BETA was a better (bettor?) who was raising the game as in, say, poker or another card game. We pronounce it Bay-ta, as John says above. Some very zany definitions, but COD to the very unlikely anagram at SCHMALTZIEST. That made me smile. Regards.
  18. It was the capital wot done me in. I finally decided on BETA on the strength of the homophone alone because I’d never heard of the test. I had 17d as an improbable *DJA*ENA. Tried it on Chambers with no expectation of sucess and was amazed when a real word popped up. Left to my own devices I would never have thought of an initial N. What a word! My other major hold up was 3a where I was trying to fit a misspelt CLEO into the answer. I seriously wondered if there was such a thing as a CLOCK VIDEO. What a carry-on! 45 minutes but with a bit of help. Ann
  19. Many thanks Dave! Having solved all but two clues (in around 13 mins, if a “partial time” means anything), I wrestled with 17dn for ages before convincing myself that ADJACENT fitted the clue – and I was therefore of course completely flummoxed by 27ac. A very nice puzzle, though, with lots of excellent clues; BEDTIME and INFANT, already highlighted by other people, and also HAIRLINE, were my favourites.
  20. I needed help from another source but not from a mash tun, more a bottle of merlot. Beta was a clue too far for me and I needed help with Ndjamena. All-in-all I thought this was a tad too clever. Perhaps I need to raise my game!?
  21. 29:55 for me. I’d no idea of the capital, and spent the time up to my half-hour limit trying to decide what was the most likely answer from the wordplay. I wasn’t entirely convinced of DJ = “radio presenter”, but couldn’t think of anything better; and although NDJAMENA seemed more likely than FDJAMENA, it didn’t really seem very likely at all – so I was relieved when I clicked on Submit and found I’d got it right.

    There were a couple of things about this puzzle that made me suspect that the setter might also have been responsible of last Saturday’s fiendish Jumbo. I quite enjoyed that one, but this seemed a touch more convoluted and I didn’t enjoy it as much. Perhaps it’s just that I’m just feeling knackered after 17dn though!

  22. A quick Google shows that it popped up in Mephisto 2447 in July of 2007. So congrats to anyone who remembered it from that!
  23. Took forever, and I got 27ac wrong: desperately put in ‘mega’, since I had the checkers and ‘game’ was in the clue. Some comfort to know that I never would have got it, partly because I don’t pronounce ‘beta’ that way. DNK MASH TUN, THICKO, TADCASTER, DIXIES. Did know NDJAMENA, but then there was a time, in an earlier life, when I knew a lot about Africa; no more, alas. (Like Helen Ougham, I thought of ‘adjacent’, then couldn’t excise it from my mind until the very end.)

    Edited at 2012-12-08 01:57 am (UTC)

  24. It certainly hasn’t appeared in a Sunday Times puzzle since I’ve been blogging them, and that covers all of PB’s tenure.

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