Times 25365 – He’s a peninsula!

Solving time: 40 minutes

Music: Bach, Suites for Cello and Piano, Starker/Sybok

Here we have a puzzle designed for the better-educated. If words like ‘usufruct’ do not come easily to mind, and you have not heard of ‘Hereward the Wake’, you might have some little difficulty here. On the other hand, if you do have the knowledge, you can put in a lot of answers from the literals alone.

After 20 minutes, I was left with only three unsolved, but I still had considerable difficulty finishing. My knowledge of Ibsen stops at ‘Hedda Gabler’ and ‘Peer Gynt’, so I had to guess a bit, and the crossing of ‘abetment’ and ‘pageant’ proved difficult. I still don’t understand some of the cryptics, including the one for ‘abetment’, but may figure them out as I write the blog. If not, it’s audience-participation time, but at least I’m pretty sure I’ve got the right answers.

Across
1 SCAMPI, SCAMP + I, not an anagram as many will expect.
5 HANGOVER, HAN([indulgin]G)OVER. One does not usually consider Victoria a Hanoverian, and I don’t think she even spoke much German, but there you go.
9 FLOUNDER, double definition.
10 ALARUM, A L + A RUM. An archaic word usually only seen in stage-direction ‘alarums and excursions’, which doesn’t convey much to modern readers either.
11 BRAND NEW, BRAND (the Ibsen play) + N + E + W. General knowledge required!
12 CANNON, sounds like CANON.
13 USUFRUCT, US U + U FR + CT. An instant write-in if you know the word.
15 NOEL, NO[v]EL.
17 Omitted.
19 WESTERLY, W(ESTER L)Y, where WY = W[ildl]Y.
20 LUSTRE, sounds like LUSTER.
21 EMBOLDEN, E + MB + OLDEN.
22 MADAME, MA(MAD backwards)E. Don’t be fooled by the ‘mad’ at the beginning, that’s not how the cryptic works.
23 ABETMENT. Well, that’s got to be it. I call on the usual crew of early posters to explain why.
24 NICKNAME, cryptic definition, for those who watch TV.
25 NONUSE, NO(N)US + E.
 
Down
2 COLORADO, CO(LOR(A)D)O.
3 MOURNFUL, M[edical]O[fficer] + URNFUL.
4 INDENTURE, anagram of RENT DUE IN. Not a legal document in much demand these days.
5 HEREWARD THE WAKE, HERE-WARD on THE WAKE, where the wake is what is found behind a boat.
6 GALLANT, GALL on top of ANT. I was thinking of a gall wasp before seeing the obvious.
7 VERONICA, VERON(IC)A, as in Two Gentleman of Verona, a play I have heard of and may have even read in my English PhD program, many years ago.
8 RUMINATE, RUM IN + anagram of TEA.
14 CARIBBEAN, anagram of A BRIBE CAN.
15 NOBLEMAN, NO(B[a]L[l]E[t])MAN, where the tag alluded too is widely known.
16 EPISODIC, EPI(SO DI)C, where a DI is a Detective Inspector, or so I suspect. I can’t explain where the ‘SO’ or ‘O’ comes from, but someone will. I surely isn’t ‘1 SOD’ in EPIC.
17 CYCLAMEN, CYCL(AM)E + N.
18 PAGEANTS, P(AGE)ANTS, a play on the various meanings of ‘spectacles’.
19 WORKMEN, WO(R[eligious]K[knowledge]MEN. While solving, I thought ‘knowledge’ was ‘ken’, but now I have worked out the correct cryptic.

48 comments on “Times 25365 – He’s a peninsula!”

  1. Having peered at 16, the only sense I can make of it is SO + DI in EPIC, where SO stands for ‘significant other’. I abhor the phrase, and would never use it, but my intuition suggests that, if you really wanted to hide the fact you had a wife, you could use this phrase to describe a married person. Similarly, if you were indulging in a bit of hanky panky with a married person, ‘single’ wouldn’t really be appropriate. Perhaps it’s something else entirely.

    Edited at 2013-01-07 03:24 am (UTC)

  2. 58 minutes, with an eternity spent on the ‘abetting’ (wish it was) – pageants crossing. Funny how pants keeeps turning up. If you didn’t know these things were organised months in advance, you’d be tempted to conclude that someone was trying to make Jack’s testy colonel even grumpier…
  3. Bit harder than your averge Monday, especially on the left right side. Was there an alternative to the two drinks=RUM crossing at 10ac and 8dn?

    Not too sure about EPI(SO,DI)C — slightly mistyped in the blog — but took the SO to be “s.o.” as used in dictionaries for “someone” (=some one?). This is probably wrong (surprise!), but it floated my boat.

    Liked HEREWARD for its nice geographical accuracy. Pity he didn’t keep the bloody Normans out! Then we’d have a language as imagined by a chap in Anthony Burgess’s autobiography who refused all Latinisms. The “bus” became “the folkwain”, usw.

    Edited at 2013-01-07 02:37 am (UTC)

  4. 25:57 .. never really got in tune with this one. As puzzled as others by the ‘O’ in EPISODIC. And ABETMENT held me up for an age. I had definitely never encountered USUFRUCT before.

    Only last Friday I asked if ‘pants’ was “in danger of becoming another ‘bra'”. Starting to look that way.

    1. I came across this only the other week in Aristotle’s Politics, where the great man talks of tyrants winning popular support by cancelling debts, and redistributing property or taking its usufruct for the state.

      Maybe something for the E”U” to think about?

      1. “I came across this only the other week in Aristotle’s Politics” ..

        Now, that’s why I come here.

  5. Surprised to see so many upstanding citizens running into trouble with the law today – both usufruct and Sod.

    Sticking to matters judicial, I enjoyed the ‘question mark as legal disclaimer’ in 14d (the setter’s equivalent of adding “allegedly” to a statement).

    Edited at 2013-01-07 04:01 am (UTC)

  6. 15:48, with the last 3 minutes taken up with ABETMENT, which sprung to mind immediately I decided that it wasn’t …-ing. Clueless as to parsing it. At least I knew USUFRUCT, for some reason. I do hope it’s not the sod of Sod’s Law, but we have ‘scorer’ often enough for ‘composer’, and I seem to recall some sort of X-man that the setter could point to as precedent. Some American solvers may not know that the Scrubs (Wormwood?) is a prison, and that ‘nick’=prison (while this American doesn’t get the TV allusion).

    Edited at 2013-01-07 06:54 am (UTC)

  7. 30 minutes for all but the troublesome intersecting pair already mentioned in the SE which required an additional 5 minutes all to themselves.

    I wasn’t bothered by ‘pants’ last time, but twice within a couple of days suggests it is in danger of becoming overused already. However I agree with joe (last Friday)that baby-talk is not to be encouraged and if ever we get ‘pooter’ for ‘computer’ I shall not be responsible for my actions!

    Having watched the excellent 3-part TV series ‘Victoria’s Children’ only last week I’m can assure our blogger that Queen Victoria spoke fluent German. It was her first language and she never lost her accent.

  8. Spent 10 minutes on ABETMENT, despite (or because of?) having put in abetting originally. Not heard of USUFRUCT, but the wordplay was unambiguous.
  9. 15 minutes, though it felt like it should have been longer. The very unlikely USUFRUCT constructed from the cryptic, ABETMENT with a shrug (one released from a spell – much too clever!) and EPISODIC with a shudder – it has to be Sod’s Law. doesn’t it?
    Rather crunchy for a Monday, and I liked HANGOVER and HEREWARD (in this direction indeed!)
    I rather wanted Bill’s companion in 2d to be Ben.
  10. Victoria was the last of the Hanoverians. After her they were Saxe Coburg Gotha (Albert’s lot) until GeorgeV changed it to Windsor in WWI. Nice clue. 17 minutes and a relief after yesterday’s miserable outing.
  11. 33m, with a constant feeling that I was making unduly heavy weather of it. It was tough, but not that tough.
    I actually had most of the required knowledge for once, including USUFRUCT. HEREWARD THE WAKE was familiar but only very vaguely, so he was last in once I’d worked out there was another way of saying “abetting” and all the checkers fell into place.
    Oh and yes, I agreee it has to be Sod’s law in 16dn.

    Edited at 2013-01-07 11:12 am (UTC)

  12. Did most in 20 minutes, a few minutes more pondering 13, which I eventually got after solving 13, but became completely stuck on 24 and 18. Compound words were not on my mind when I looked at N_C_N__E. After ages I saw it, but didn’t get PAGEANTS until I resorted to Bradford’s.

    The lawman must be Sod as suggested above, but I assumed at the time it stood for “Sergeant on duty”.
    I don’t think 4 really works, needing an additional ‘in’ (which would ruin the surface, of course) but otherwise some lovely clues.

  13. Well, this did seem unnecessarily trcksy in places, and I am no fan of puzzles that require GK. Some nice clues of course, and a 37 minute outing for yours truly.

    Many thanks for your blog.

    Chris Gregory.

  14. This seemed to me, on the whole, an easyish puzzle – certainly when compared with yesterday’s excellent ST cryptic – but, as Vinyl suggests, I was helped on this occasion by knowing the literary references and most of the obscure vocabulary, which meant that several clues went in quickly on defs alone without my having to decipher the wordplay. That said, I did get bogged down in the SE corner where PAGEANTS and ABETMENT were my LOIs. Like others, I was mystified by EPISODIC (though it was plainly the right answer). I agree that the reference has to be to Sod’s Law with the “i” before “sod” supplying the “single” bit of the clue. Thanks to those above for providing enlightenment. Brilliant wordplay (now I understand it) that was rather wasted because the literal def was so obvious.
  15. Definitely Sod of Law fame.I have tried and failed to identify any specific Mr Sod (or indeed Mr Murphy).
    An enjoyable puzzle and my education saw me through Hereward and usufruct … LOI was PAGEANTS with a groan at pants again, 25 minutes. My CoD was MOURNFUL as I like my tea by the urnful.
  16. I’ve just had a LJ “varnish error” whatever that is – irritating for sure since it loses what one has typed.

    I came to this after 18 holes of golf that left me completely knackered – I’m well out of condition through enforced lack of exercise – so found this harder than it might otherwise have been. Sods Law you might say.

    Struggled through it, surviving wierd vocab and DBE along the way. Off for a kip now.

  17. If anyone out there subscribes both to the Times Crossword Club and the newspaper on-line, please look at the the thread “Complimentary access to the Club” in the General forum. You no longer need a separate subscription to the Club and you are entitled to a rebate on membership outstanding.
    1. I subscribe to the printed newspaper and the crossword club. I assume I’m not eligible for any concessions. Ann
    2. Thanks Jack: you’ve saved me some money!
      Mind you I’m a bit nervous about altering my subscription in any way. Based on past experience it will lead to some combination of double charging, the creation of duplicate accounts and mysterious changes to my log-in ID to a non-existent address ending “@timesplus”.
      1. Thanks for alerting us to that possibility, Jack, though, like Keriothe, I’m a bit nervous about altering my subscription for the same reasons he gives. Still, worth making some inquiries.
    3. On the flip side there’s a hold on new subscriptions to the crossword club. You can register an interest on the site and then get a very pleasant email from Peter Biddlecombe saying you’re ‘on the list’. There’s also a free month’s trial of the online paper which gives access to the club.
  18. Tackled this when tired and did well enough until the fatal abetment/pageants crossing when seem to have abruptly gone to sleep. On waking put them in at once so I think the recurrence of the asinine puerility, and I don’t mean abetment, made me blank out the world. However, enjoyed much of the rest, particularly the lawman and simply writing down usufruct. And being reminded of a long name that entranced me as a child.
  19. Well, I’m not among the group vinyl describes as the better-educated. Pity, after all those years and money, so long ago. As vinyl predicted for us laggards, both Mr. HEREWARD and USUFRUCT were completely unknown (the closest I came was ‘usufract’, and I figured out as far as ‘Hereward the ?A?E’) so I had to look them up. So I learned two new things today, thus inching me along the life-long educational path. On the other hand, I actually fought through the wordplay to reach PAGEANTS, ABETMENT and EPISODIC, and understood them too. Spent about 45 minutes before reaching for the aids. Best regards to all.
  20. As a fairly inexperienced solver, I struggled to finish this one today but thought it very good. My query relates to 23A and it seems to me that either “protecting” or “inside” could be removed from the clue and it would still work. Do they not both suggest that T(I)ME is placed inside A+BENT and therefore one of them is not needed? Perhaps “inside” is added to help the surface? Quite possible I have missed the boat as nobody else has mentioned it! Thanks to vinyl and all contributors as usual.
    1. I agree that “inside” could be dispensed with at 23 ac, but it does improve the surface reading and could also be taken as indicating that the “i” should be removed from inside “time”, whereas “protecting” indicates that A+BENT should contain the result of having done that. If you see what I mean!
  21. 29.24 today with 6 minutes on the 23a and 18d junction. So for me this was on the easy side though I was grateful to the blog for explaining 16d and 5d which went in in the cryptic. My COD to 7d as it took a while to twig Verona and to stop looking for the companion to RON with the name VEA or even EVA!
  22. Well, I enjoyed most of this, but although I had to look up HEREWARD THE WAKE (HEREWARD was clear from the wordplay, but was it HEREWARD THE DANE, HEREWARD THE LINE, HEREWARD THE PALE, HEREWARD THE LAME? — I didn’t know, but Google helped immediately). Unfortunately I put in USUPRECT rather than USUFRUCT, assuming that PRE was a posh way of writing PADRE. Serves me right. Some nice clues, though: for example, VERONICA and HANGOVER.
  23. For an old hand like me this should have been easy, but I made heavy weather of several clues – particularly 23ac, where like others I started off with ABETTING. Nevertheless it seems that my modest 8:54 has actually left me reasonably well up the TCC leaderboard. All very strange.
  24. Came up three short today (HTW, Usufruct and Pageants missing). Did the rest in fits and starts, but found it a struggle.

    Nice to see this unusual grid again (blank squares making up two capital Es and two four letter words fully checked). It doesn’t get an outing very often.

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