Times 25342 – All I’m looking for is a fair sheik!

Solving time: 65 minutes

Music: Bizet, L’Arlesienne Suites, Martinon/CSO

I knew this would happen – three weeks of easy Monday puzzles, and then when I return to blogging, a more difficult offering. Not, however, as difficult as I made it, struggling with relatively straightforward clues and rejecting ideas that turned out to be quite correct. I don’t think this setter was quite on my wavelenghth, since I had less trouble with Sunday’s rather witty offering.

My final difficulty involved a rather ambiguous ‘sounds like’ clue. I was so confident which part was the phonogrist and which the literal that I failed to consider the alternate reading. This was my own fault, but when the two homonyms are the same number of letters I would prefer a more straightforward clue. Only after getting the German locale did I see my error.

.

Across
1 PULL ROUND, PULL + ROUND. I got so stuck on the ecclesiastical meaning of ‘canon’, I quite forgot my music.
6 AWARD, A + WARD. A well-concealed literal, but for a while I thought this was a substitute ‘i’ for ‘s’ type of clue.
9 LIKENED, LIKE + NED. My first in, had to start somewhere.
10 RECLUSE, RU(E[x]C[e]L[s])SE. Another relatively easy one.
11 TABOO, BAT backwards + O + O.
13 RUMP STEAK, RUM + anagram of KEPT AS. I got stuck thinking ‘tea’ was the drink part.
14 SEALPOINT, SEA + L + POINT. Another crafty literal, I’m always forgetting the cats.
16 Omitted.
18 SIKH, sounds like SEEK. Yes, I had ‘seek’ for a long time, the clue reads equally well either way. I was thinking ‘Sikh’ had five letters or something, and didn’t remember how to spell it until I got the German wood.
19 HARSHNESS, HAR([S]crum]H[alf])NESS.
22 FOOLHARDY, FOOL + HARDY. How ‘kisser asked for’ works, I cannot say. One of the early commenters will know. See the first comment – thanks, McT!
24 CUT IN, CU + TIN. a very metallic clue.
25 TREMOLO, anagram of LOT MORE.
26 ANISEED, A + N (I SEE) D[inner].
28 PUT ON, NOT UP backwards. A missed chance for a tennis clue.
26 DENIGRATE, anagram of T[ime] REGAINED. I was not helped by not remembering how this word is spelt.
 
Down
1 PILATES, P(I)LATES. It’s hard not to go with ‘mate’ when you see ‘China’, but here we have the genuine article.
2 Omitted.
3 RANDOLPH, RAN + PLOD backwards + H[ospital].
4 UNDER, [s]UNDER, where ‘s’ = ‘beginning to spread’. A very clever letter-removal clue that had me stumped for a long time.
5 DURA MATER, D(anagram of AMATEUR)R. Laboriously worked out from the cryptic by me, since I am only vaguely familiar with the target answer.
6 ACCOST, sounds like A COST. A soundalike where you can’t go wrong.
7 ACUTE ACCENT, A CUTE ACCENT, another one that had me fooled for a bit.
8 DOESKIN, anagram of KID? ONE’S in an &lit that is not hard to spot.
12 BLACK FOREST, B + LACK + F[lying]O[fficer] + REST. Not very difficult if you have the correct crossing letters.
15 ISHERWOOD, IS + HER(WOO)D. I saw this right away from the ‘is’, but failed to parse it and so rejected it.
17 SHOCKING, S(HOCK)ING. I saw the ‘sing’ right away, but was very slow with the wine.
18 SOFT TOP, S(OFT)TOP. Another one where I was on the right track, recognizing ‘saloon’ as a car and ‘oft’ as a probably component, but still couldn’t get it.
20 SINE DIE, DENIS backwards + I.E. A quite deceptive clue with a very smooth surface.
21 Omitted.
23 YEARN, YEAR + N[apoleon].
27 ETA, double definition.

42 comments on “Times 25342 – All I’m looking for is a fair sheik!”

    1. Cheers Vinyl. Occurred to me that, in the light of 5dn, you could have used the title “A hard mother”!
  1. Another lively and delightfully witty puzzle that took me 26 minutes. Only one unknown, the membrane at 5dn but fortunately I was able to guess the answer correctly from the remaining anagrist.

    Rather odd to have the same answer to the same number clue in the same place in the grid on two consecutive days, although yesterday being Sunday the puzzles had different editors. I won’t name the clue as the ST puzzle is currently off limits for discussion.

    FOOLHARDY made me laugh.

    1. Different editors, and no checking for duplication (just like the Times 15×15 and Jumbo cryptics I believe), so this can happen. When it does, there’s about a 1 in 30 chance of the clue number being the same.
  2. Yeh, I liked this too; in particular the cunning contrival of the quotation from T.S. Eliot in 4dn. (Though my edition of Eliot has “etherised” with an S.)
  3. 17:46, a relief after yesterday’s, which I’m still working on. I actually went with ‘pal’ not ‘mate’, and was surprised that China actually meant china (you tell me you’re going to Minsk, …). LOI was 14ac, which needed all the checkers and a vague memory of the term. For a while I was trying for ‘amuse x’ at 7d (as in amuse-bouche), but finally saw the light. Got 22ac post hoc; very clever, indeed. COD to 4d, though (leave it to TS to use the (then) British spelling).

    Edited at 2012-12-10 03:33 am (UTC)

  4. 18 minutes big struggle for me – sine die from definition, sealpoint from wordplay and wasn’t sure at all about doeskin or dura mater
  5. 12m. I found this pretty straightforward. A few unknowns, including DURA MATER: fortunately this looked much the likeliest order for inserting the vowels.
    I thought I must be going mad when I saw the same answer in the same place as yesterday.
  6. 20 minutes missing several neat points on the way: I assumed UNDER was just under-something with a bit missing, and that Thomas Hardy had somehow gained a reputation as an osculation artist. Pity, they were fine clues.
    I had SHAKEN (a valid alternative?) for 21d until TREMOLO made it impossible. DURA MATER on the most likely vowel distribution and plausible Latin, SEALPOINT a d’oh moment, as Siamese can only really point to twins or cats. PILATES last in, snookered by the plates being just plates – a real setter’s sucker punch for the seasoned solver.
  7. Easy one this, 11mins or so. Also a bit surprised to see the same faintly unusual word two days running, annoying that it still took a bit of time to twig.

    Some very good clues esp. 22ac, but also some quite clunky ones like 4dn.. if every word is supposed to be doing something, what are the last three doing?

  8. Didn’t quite make the half hour: the clock chimed about a minute before I wrote in the final answer.

    A very enjoyable puzzle with witty, succinct clues, though I wasted time trying to remember the opening lines of Prufrock for 4 down.

    I half remember reading the rather sad story that Winston Churchill’s son, Randolph, said something to the effect that the public would be aware of him only on the day of his death. This was not to be, as he suffered his fatal heart attack on the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated. (I cannot find the exact quotation; perhaps someone here knows it.)

    1. I don’t know the Randolph S Churchill quote, John, only Evelyn Waugh’s less than generous response to hearing of the removal of a benign tumour (you get the feeling their joint mission to wartime Yugoslavia failed to promote lifelong camaraderie).

      Randolph S certainly felt the burden of his name. Time magazine’s obit claims: “When you are living under the shadow of a great oak tree,” he once reflected, “the small sapling does not perhaps receive enough sunshine.”

      I see in his Wikipedia article that Randolph had been commission by that same Robert Kennedy you mention to write a biography – never written – of John F. There’s a weird circularity at work there.

  9. 38 minutes after a long hold-up at the end on Sealpoint and dura mater. I think the editor might have respected TSE’s spelling, especially as it’s still valid (and to my mind preferable). I’m sure the poet would have deplored the z. It’s a pity Valerie (his widow) is no longer with us. She might have written a neat little letter to The Times about it. An amazing image, half-opening the door to the modern poetic aesthetic on its own. (Sorry, Dorset!)
      1. Well, it was my Pseuds’ Corner comment that I thought might put the old blogger off his golf shot for the rest of the week.

        Edited at 2012-12-10 11:12 am (UTC)

        1. Thanks. I tried getting round this by not putting my next link in as a link, but it spammed it anyway.
      1. Seems to me the spelling’s been mindlessly updated – if that’s not the original Faber text. I have “s” in a ’48 Penguin and a ’69 Faber.
        1. Received your last though apparently spammed again here. Yes, seems you could well be right. (Maybe he was more New England than England at the time.)
          1. Yes, any link seems to get spammed, even if you don’t write it as a link.
            For anyone interested all back issues of Poetry magazine are available online: Google “poetry foundation”. Prufrock was first published in the June 1915 edition and the patient was definitely etherized.
  10. 10:24 for a puzzle which was right on my wavelength. Very elegant in style; and if a little more tricky than the traditional Monday offering, it quite rightly restricted itself to no more than normal General Knowledge (translation: Things I Know).
  11. the toughest outer membrane covering the brain and lining the skull cavity ( the other two being the Arachnoid and the Pia Mater)
  12. I must have been on the same wavelength as the setter and topicaltim as I only took 7 minutes to sort this one out. Particularly enjoyed the ‘kisser’ in 22a.
  13. Very, very easy… until I hit SEALPOINT (totally forgotten as a cat) and DURA MATER (never knew I had one). I gave up after about 20 minutes of staring at these two.
  14. 31.20 but guessed wrong for 5d so another DNF. I thought I was heading for a sub 20 but over 10m on 22a and 14a put paid to that before the error. Some very enjoyable clues here with my pick as the frustrating 22a which is in fact both witty and elegant once you get it! I half expect some complaint about the misspelling of TSE and rightly so.

    Edited at 2012-12-10 01:29 pm (UTC)

  15. I thought this was an easy puzzle until I read the blog. What’s all this poetic nonsense with folk waxing lyrical all over the place – control yourselves!

    Didn’t like 18A – don’t like particularly “sounds like” clues that can lead to two different answers – can’t be solved without checkers. Enjoyed the rest – 20 minutes after another heavy slog round a still very wet golf course.

  16. I agree with jimbo, although did get it all in 17 minutes, of which 5 were spent getting my LOI SEALPOINT, I was obsessed with SCARP…. for a while. Liked HARDY and DOESKIN. Jimbo, even our course is muddy now and the French are hibernating.
  17. Lovely puzzle – amusing, succinct clues with excellent surface reads. Very much my wavelength – so about 30 mins. I particularly liked ACUTE ACCENT and FOOLHARDY. Don’t understand the Dorsetshire objection to 18ac – what possible other answer could there be? Certainly no need for checkers.

    Golf down here in Wimbledon either ankle-deep in water or ice hard, with pitches to the greens leaping 20ft into the air and disappearing into the bushes beyond.

    1. Like Vinyl I thought either SEEK or SIKH would answer the clue but luckily spotted the potential problem and entered neither until I had the gateau to confirm the K

      Perhaps the French have got the right idea and it’s us who are mad to even try and play at the moment.

      1. For Vinyl’s reading of the clue to have worked plausibly – irrespective of checkers – it would have to have read something like “Try to get sound of one in gurdwara?”, I would have thought. Re the golf: I think the French probably do have the right idea. I’m pretty much a fairweather golfer myself these days and tend to wimp out if rain (or worse) seriously threatens. But I’m hoping for a game tomorrow morning when the forecast doesn’t look too bad.
  18. Nice work to all those who raced through this, because I definitely did not. About an hour, held up by DURA MATER, FOOLHARDY (although I’m familiar enough with the death of the Admiral, and the quote), SEALPOINT and the Latin phrase. Ouch. All these eventually came out except one: I had to use aids to get SEALPOINT in the end. Quite a struggle for me, and I certainly didn’t catch the T.S. Eliot quote either. Not my day, but regards to all nonetheless.
  19. 10:05 for me. No problem with DURA MATER, but I had a senior moment (or rather a senior couple of minutes) with 14ac, wondering at first if the answer could be STARPOINT, but not being convinced and eventually resorting to working through the alphabet. Fortunately SEALPOINT rang a bell, and I was relieved when the wordplay matched it.

    I had to stop myself from wasting time trying to remember bits of Prufrock in response to 4dn. I think that particular simile must be the least convincing I’ve ever come across.

  20. 27 minutes for all but the unknown Sealpoint. I don’t usually time myself but solved this one last night in peace and quiet in the study (rather than in drips and drabs during the morning at work) so thought why not? FOI Soft Top. Hardy (“kisser asked for”) raised a smile.

Comments are closed.