Times 25352

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 31:36

I didn’t have any major problems with this, despite tackling it after midnight and being quite tired, so I suspect it must be on the easy side.

A couple of unknown words for me today – ADOBE and PALIMPSEST. I probably could have been under the half hour if I’d had any confidence on the latter of these, but it looked so unlikely a word. I eventually looked it up in my dictionary out of desperation and was rather surprised to find it existed.

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

Across
1 M(OR)ALE
5 BACKS + TOP
9 BE + WILDER – I wasn’t entirely convinced by ‘Make up’ for BE at the time, but now I think it’s OK.
10 NEARER = RERAN rev about arEna
11 PAL(I + MP’S)EST – My LOI – An unlikely looking word that I’d never heard of
13 IOTA – hidden
14 KIT + planE
15 EVEN + T(U)ALLY
18 INEPTITUDE = (EDIT + E + INPUT)*
20 MINT – triple def – packet / sweet / herb
21 sHARE
23 ASTUTENESS = (TAUT SENSES)*
25 FOR(A)GE – ‘tack’ has a variety of different meanings, one of which is food, as in hard tack (ship’s biscuits), although I’m not sure it’s the sort of food one would generally forage for, but I guess you could.
26 P(ART)ISAN
28 SEMESTER = (SEES TERM)* – An &lit, or at least a semi-&lit
29 GANDER = RED + NAG all rev
Down
2 OP(ERA)TION
3 ASININE = A + IS rev + NINE
4 friEND
5 BAR(Gravy)E
6 CONS(TITUs)ENT
7 STAMINA = ANIMATeS rev
8 OVERT = TREVOr rev
12 PREDICAMENT = (DECREPIT MAN)*
16 fEMUr
17 LANDS + CAPE
19 P(REF)ACE
20 MANSION – I think this is MAN and SON for ‘one-parent family’ about I (kept in one)
22 ADO + B + E – I didn’t know the word, but the wordplay was very clear. Of course, being in IT as I am, I’m very familiar with the software company of the same name who make Acrobat.
24 TAP + ER
27 RIG = GI + R all rev

30 comments on “Times 25352”

  1. About 15 mins for me. Didn’t time it though. It seemed easy.

    I knew PALIMPSEST so it was pretty much a write-in from “parchment that’s recycled”. Can’t be anything else.

  2. I’d have been well under my 30 minute target but for PALIMPSEST which I’d never heard of. I’d spotted both elements of the wordplay, 1MP’S and PALEST, but then dismissed out of hand the idea that one could possibly fit one inside the other to create a proper word.

    Everything else seemed pretty straightforward, especially for a Friday.

    ADOBE has come up before because I remember quoting from the Pat Boone song:

    “It was a moonlit night in old Mexico. I walked alone between some old adobe haciendas. Suddenly, I heard the plaintive cry of a young Mexican girl. You better come home, Speedy Gonzales…”

    Edited at 2012-12-21 02:23 am (UTC)

  3. By sheer coincidence, I was discussing the different historical layers of Perth as a metaphorical palimpsest with a friend just the other day. The other coincidence is that 13ac (IOTA) was in yesterday’s puzzle if you look at the second row — a semi-nina. Will we have PRAY tomorrow, or, perhaps TROL(L)IES?

    So … and easyish end to an easyish week. The ones that held me up were the (now rather obvious) 27dn/29ac pair, RIG AND GANDER. Expecting a couple of stinkers at the weekend.

    1. mct I love your first sentence. Do forgive me if I use it occasionally, a propos of nothing, to impress.
  4. 24′, but I put in ‘mare’ instead of HARE (why? you ask; don’t ask, I reply): I did an alphabet run like Vinyl, but I seem to have passed H by. I didn’t think to figure out EMU, since what else could it be?; thanks for explaining that one.

    Edited at 2012-12-21 04:30 am (UTC)

  5. 17 minutes, another gentle run. Maybe a steamer’s on the way. Now to sotira’s inquisition which should at least have more character about it.
  6. Just a one-cup crossword today, 10 mins give or take. However I did spend some time wondering (16dn) what sort of bone a mu was…
  7. Romped through in 13 minutes, only to find a variance at 14 ac – I put FINE, parsed as def. ‘old’ as in cognac, and FIN for aircraft equipment plus the E. I see now KITE a better answer but mine was credible enough to preclude a re-think. Pity.
    My FOI Palimpsest from the def, my COD Bewilder.
  8. 15 minutes even with ‘flu but at least it did the difficult job in the circumstances of holding my interest. PALIMPSEST is surely a once seen, never forgotten. CoD to MANSION, by some distance.
    I looked op the etymology of GANDER=look post-solve – does anyone know or suspect anything different from the received (and slightly disappointing) “crane one’s neck like a goose”?
    1. I always thought Gander was rhyming slang for Gander Hook, like Butcher’s Hook, but now you’ve made me think about it, I can’t see any justification for it. Strangely, there is a Ganderhook Road in Lucasville Ohio!
  9. Another reasonably easy puzzle, taking me a few minutes longer than yesterday’s.
    I thought 9 was a rather lame clue and wasn’t convinced by ‘be’ for ‘make up’. Nor do I see the need for “old’ in 14 since ‘kite’ is simply RAF slang for an aeroplane.
    But these are minor quibbles. A nice touch of originality in 20 dn.
  10. An easy week overall with this one very much in the same somewhat anodyne flavour of the others. PALI… has come up before (possibly in a Mephisto). I’m hoping for some tough workouts this weekend.

    I think GANDER just refers to the nosy geese craning their long necks to see what is going on. They were far more common every day companions when these old slang words came into being.

  12. About 17 minutes. I took a while to get going so started putting in answers all over the shop. I think my lack of methodologicalness cost me some time.

    I’m grateful to Dave for explaining EMU and MANSION. Re the former I’d just assumed that MU was a bone I’d never heard of (connected to the PI bone I’d wager) and in the case of the latter I couldn’t see beyond MA for the single parent so was uuterly flummoxed as to where the NSION came from.

    I also had a QM next to 9 as, like others, I don’t get the BE bit.

    Edited at 2012-12-21 01:21 pm (UTC)

    1. I thought it might be MA ‘N’ SON about I. (Perhaps that’s what the setter actually had in mind!?)
  13. Dead chuffed (as we say in these parts) to have scored my best time ever – and on a Friday too. 42 minutes and happy. I took make up to mean essential character as in it’s in his make up to be careful.
    1. I think make up is a verb in the sense of “be a constituent part of” as in, say, “Council members will make up (be) 40 percent of the committee”
  14. A good day today at 16.17 with the first 10 or so going in straight off. Helped by knowing the more unusual words and not stumbling over more obvious ones. No stand out clue today for me but pleased to be improving; no doubt coming to a sticky end when jimbo’s wish comes true over the weekend. Regards to all and thanks to the blogger.
  15. Yup, another easy one, especially for a Friday. For a moment or two, I thought I was amazingly going to improve on my Monday’s PB of 10 mins, but got a little bogged down in the SE corner and ran out at 15 mins. With all the hubris this week about the puzzles being too easy, a particularly savage nemesis must be waiting in the wings, I fear.
  16. I had LANDSPATE for LANDSCAPE. Wrong kind of ‘head’. Not to mention ‘landspate’ isn’t a word!
  17. 8.45 here, so I found this easy. Fortunately I’ve come across PALIMPSEST before, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what it means.
  18. About ten minutes in total – had to give up timing myself due to being interrupted by telephone call from the world’s most verbose sister in law.

  19. I did this in a very leisurely 18 minutes. Could probably have been quicker but I had other things on my mind (lists and such-like). Nice enough but a bit anodyne. Lots of answers went in from definition alone – which is never as satisfying as chewing on the cryptic. Sotira’s questionnaire was more entertaining. Ann
  20. Very easy, best time (25 minutes), but still DNF, since I had LINE instead of KITE, assuming old aircraft controlled their rudders or whatever with a line and there would be a line at the end of a (half-)plane. Oh, dear, but probably no chance of my getting that one right. The rest was no problem at all. TAPER was at least amusing, but there is really no COD.

    Edited at 2012-12-21 07:27 pm (UTC)

  21. Very many thanks for the year in blogs Dave. Your alter ego looks ready to celebrate and I hope you follow suit.
  22. 10:49 here, with about half of it spent on GANDER and RIG. I managed to convince myself that there was a single word meaning “chestnut horse” which could mean “look” when reversed. And that “over for uniform” meant substituting O for U in some word, despite being unable to think of any likely candidate. (Feeling old and tired. Sigh!)
  23. Like others, put MANSION in but felt shaky on the wordplay. Americans know ADOBE well, but we would be stretched to ever call the catcher a backstop because the big wire screen that sits 15 or 20 feet behind the catcher on almost every field is itself called the backstop. The equivalent might be to call an outfielder a boundary, or a goalie a net.

    Thoughtful in London

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