Times 25395 – The blogger’s dilemma

Solving time: 65 minutes

Music: Mozart, Piano Sonatas, Eschenbach

This one was really tough for me, and I’m not entirely certain of some of the answers. If there is anything a blogger hates, it’s having to blog an answer that’s on the shaky side. If you say it’s a bad clue or vague clue, you’ll probably discover that this is because you don’t understand the first thing about some marvelously clever bit of wordplay. So I’m going to admit frankly that I have no confidence in a couple of my answers, and I expect to have to cross out and replace some part of this blog.

This puzzle was rather heavy with long anagrams, which at least gives you somewhere to start. Unfortunately, I struggled with a quite few of them, and was only saved when I got a few crossing letters. But what really got me was a few of the short answers, where I had all of the crossing letters and still couldn’t see it. Gradually, over the course of more than an hour, some enlightenment dawned.

Postscript: I rushed to post the blog because of problems with my internet connection, so I didn’t bother to research ‘snap’. It now appears that my answer is perfectly correct, and it’s just a bit of UK slang I didn’t know. That leaves ‘sri’ and ‘cram’ as the dubious ones.

Across
1 EXCERPT, EXCE(R)PT. A cleverly-disguised chestnut. I sometimes wonder why constructors never clue ‘GOP’ as ‘Republican’.
6 STEPS UP, STEPS(ON) + UP. I struggled to see what was meant by ‘wife’s son’, trying to work in a ‘w’ somehow.
9 Omitted, a rare easy one.
10 PREPARATION, anagram of P[ower} + PRAETORIAN.
11 WARRANTY, WAR + RANT + sounds like WHY. Rather obvious from the crossing letters, if you can get them!
12 CINEMA, A + MEN + I[n] C[harge] backwards.
15 DRAW, D[emocrat] + RAW. I found this surprisingly difficult for such a simple clue.
16 MINESTRONE, anagram of NONE MERITS, not seen before by me.
18 SKIN GRAFTS, S KING + RAFTS.
19 CRAM, CRAM[p]. This may well be wrong, but what else might it be?
22 RANSOM, R(ANS)OM, where ROM = Romans, not memory.
23 PENITENT, PEN + I + TENT, my first in.
25 TROJAN HORSE, double definition. A Trojan Horse actually does no damage, although it does permit remote evildoers to see what you are typing.
27 DOT, cryptic definition, there is a dot over ‘i’, but not over ‘u’.
28 HEALTHY, [-st+H]EALTHY, a rather tricky substitution clue, where ‘well’ is the literal rather than part of the cryptic as you might expect.
29 MONEYED, MON + EYED, another easy one.
 
Down
1 ENDOWED, END + O + WE’D, where the ‘o’ is mischievously defined as ‘circular letter’.
2 CONURBATION, anagram of ON TOUR IN CAB. I had a lot of trouble with this, wanting it to be ‘conturbation’.
3 REPEAL, RE(PE)AL. I thought ‘strenuous’ was the literal for quite a while, but it is actually one of those extended definitions that can fool the experienced solver, who expects terseness.
4 THEATRICAL, anagram of ART inside anagram of ETHICAL. The literal is quite clever.
5 SNAP, S + NAP. OK, here we have serious doubt. My proposed answer fits the cryptic well enough, where ‘shilling’ = ‘S’ and ‘down’ = ‘nap’, but the literal is another matter. I strongly suspect I have not gotten to the bottom of this clue.
6 EMACIATE, E + MA(CIA)TE, where ‘second’ is used in the sense of helper or assistant….I think.
7 SRI, another one where the cryptic is unclear, although the answer looks correct.
8 PINNATE, P(INN)ATE, one I can blog with confidence.
13 ECO-FRIENDLY, anagram of FORCE LED IN + [stephne]Y.
14 KETTLEDRUM, KETTLED + RUM. Solvers are expected to know the less common meaning of ‘tattoo’.
17 IGNORANT, [s]IGNORA + NT.
18 SCRATCH, SC(RAT C[irca])H, a brilliant clue if you understand the literal, but probably quite annoying if you don’t.
20 MUTATED, MU(TATE)D
21 PIGEON, double definition. If you don’t see it, you’re unlikely to try an ‘o’ for the fifth letter, which makes it tough to get by going through the alphabet.
24 WHEY, WH[it]E + Y.
25 Omitted, look for it!

67 comments on “Times 25395 – The blogger’s dilemma”

  1. About 15 minutes for all but S_I, on which I had to admit defeat (it’s bedtime). I’m clueless.

    I can confirm that a SNAP is a dialect word for a packed lunch (Yorkshire? Tyneside? Somewhere up there ….).

    Edited at 2013-02-11 02:42 am (UTC)

  2. Similar problems here. I gave up at 40 minutes with 5dn and 7dn unsolved and was unable to solve 5dn even after resorting to aids. I still don’t understand SRI beyond the definition, a word that I didn’t know anyway. My best guess at 5dn was SPAM for its vague associations with luncheon-meat packed sandwiches but I’ve no doubt it’s incorrect (as now confirmed by Sotira).

    I also decided on CRAM(p) to explain 19ac.

    GOP has turned up before now because that’s where I learnt it.

    Edited at 2013-02-11 02:49 am (UTC)

  3. Very, very rusty after the best part of a week off. (Though I did enjoy Anax’s effort yesterday.) No problems with SNAP (aka CRIB, etc) in various dialects. Ditto with CRAMP which is a restraining device (cf CLAMP).

    “Not The Craw … The Craw!” (Get Smart).

    However, this is a DNF because I went for TAI at 7dn — as an allowable variant of THAI (T’AI). Figured this was half of TAI-lor; where “ready-made” is “tailor-made”. That left a completely unjustifiable SWEPT-UP at 5ac.

    So can’t help with SRI then. As noted: much out of practice.

  4. For the most part I share your doubts and puzzlement, vinyl.

    SRI (which is common in Malasia and India) was easy enough from the def, but I have no idea about the rest of the clue.

    I see no problem with CRAMP=restraint – think school woodwork classes.

    In 14dn what does “kettled” mean? – the OED does not have “kettle” as a verb and “kettled” only as an obscure geological term.

    Derek

    1. Got caught out on this one on a blog day. Apparently it’s a fairly recent term used to mean how the cops contain demonstrators at a march.
      1. Thanks mctext. “Kettled” is not in the OED (as I said) and neither is it in my Chambers or COED (although they may not be the latest editions). I did however find it in the Urban Dictionary. I’m afraid that when we have to resort to the Urban Dictionary over the OED, I feel cheated.

        derek

        1. I don’t see how ‘not half’ can possibly apply to words both before and after it but I think S as an abbreviation is likely, if a bit naughty. If that was the setter’s intention it would have been be fairer to use apostrophe S.

          As for ‘ready’ = ‘rial’ I don’t buy it, particularly as it’s an alternative spelling anyway. ‘Ready’ = ‘ripe’ seems much more likely to me.

        2. It’s in the latest Oxford Dictionary of English as follows:

          kettling > noun [mass noun] a method used by police to maintain order during a large demonstration by confining demonstrators to a small area.

  5. Good to see you back!

    I suppose the S could be accounted for by ‘(i)S not half’ which leaves us with RI. I wonder if it’s an obscure currency or abbreviation for a currency clued by ‘ready’.

      1. I now wonder if the clue is supposed to be:

        “Asian gentleman’s not half ready” giving us S+RI(pe)

        1. Jack: just thought the same on the way back from a shopping/library expedition. (It beats the 40˚+ heat!) So, yes, it’s:

          “is” = {apostrophe}S + RI{pe}.

          Don’t like the first bit; but there it is! Don’t think the RI{al} solution (below) holds water; but it’s better than “residual income”!

          1. I don’t envy you that but I wouldn’t mind 40˚ Fahrenheit just at the moment. It’d be enough to thaw all the snow that’s fallen overnight here in wintry Bedfordshire.

            Edited at 2013-02-11 08:46 am (UTC)

            1. Sri Jack: 40˚C = 104˚F. A happy medium for both would do just fine right now … or … at least … some rain. I believe that’s what one calls the wet stuff that falls out of the sky.
  6. 26:54; that’s the good news. 4 errors is the bad. Mis-typed PENITENT with a final D, thus putting paid to 2 correct answers. Put in SPAM at 5d, in sheer desperation (packed lunch; I hear some people eat the stuff). And I wrote–not mistyped, wrote–‘ego-‘ for ECO-. I don’t know why, other than that I was getting increasingly eager to go to the loo. I’d forgotten the new meaning of KETTLE, but was sure it was DRUM, so…
  7. if you live around London you would have no problem with KETTLED. It is the favourite tactic of the Met Police in dealing with demonstrations, namely driving the crown and unlucky passers by into a confined space and sealing off all the exits, often for many hours. TonyW
  8. Well, this all seemed very straightforward until I came here! 20 minute stroll for a decent puzzle.

    “‘s” is a knee-jerk substitution for both “is” and “has” in Mephistoland and ready=ripe is surely obvious enough.

    I had some doubts about the “you” in 27A but assume this to be a reference to “u” used in texting?

    I like the “she” in 18D and wonder if the setter is a lady?

  9. Like others I didn’t have a clue about 5dn or 7dn. I think both are absolutely dreadful clues.
    I don’t understand 27ac either: is the idea just that the word “you” doesn’t have a letter with a dot on it, or does “you” mean U? And if the latter, how?
    1. No, it can’t be a homophone – there’s no “sounds like” indicator

      I think the “small” is the indicator for I=i and you=U

      1. I think you must be right on that, Jimbo. A good clue, I thought, though it seems to have irritated some above. While you’re there, how would you explain the purpose of the indefinite article before “pub” in the clue to 8 dn? The solution – PINNATE – doesn’t seem to require it. It looks like unwarranted padding to me.
  10. Had to go away and think about SRI, which eventually came to me as I was reading the rest of the paper; but otherwise the puzzle was fine.

    SNAP Should have got this much quicker, as it was a common term from my childhood in South Staffordshire. All workingmen had a “snap bag”, which was invariably a rectangular, khaki bag with a shoulder strap, readily available for a shilling or two from the Army Surplus stores. These bags might have been used for gas masks during the war.

  11. Not heard of the word used for food but I have a friend from Lancashire who says SCRAN for food.Overseas solvers are going to be hard pressed to get these Anglocentric terms.
  12. Found this a difficult start to the week and had three missing (Steps On, Snap and Cram) and one mistake (Pinnage not Pinnate).

    Knew ‘kettled’ from UK news reports about police riot control.

  13. Took over fifty minutes for this.In several cases I had the answer quickly (eg SRI, KETTLEDRUM) but didn’t enter it because I didn’t see the wordplay initially. Wordplay for SRI has to be S + RI(pe), though I did momentarily consider S + RI(al). What threw me was that I didn’t think it was Times style to clue S as ‘is’. Like mctext I did briefly consider TAI for 7, but discounted it because of ‘gentleman’ in the clue.

    There were some excellent clues, notably 1ac, 28, 13.

  14. Oh dear… Well SRI went in with no problem but then I was left with 5 down. Couldn’t think of anything from the definition so was left with S + a three letter word for down and opted for PAT.
  15. In the mines and steelworks of North Wales it was known as ‘snappin’ and packed in a ‘snappin tin’ to keep out the dust, which then went into a snapping bag with a billy can for brewing tea. Later, if you were posh, you had a Thermos flask for the tea!
  16. I was defeated, you won the war, Mr/Mrs/Ms setter. Not sour grapes, well not too much anyway, but I can’t say I particularly enjoyed the clues I did get, which IS annoying. Too damned hard for a Monday, I rather think!

    Chris.

  17. 15 mins (on a bus – would I have been faster at a desk?) Like others I wasn’t entirely sure about the SNAP/SRI/CRAM conundrums but luckily I plumped for the right words.
  18. Hi, follow your blog when we cannot get the answers ourselves, but have to query 7dn ! Less not half ready could be (shi) lling, and shi is a gender neutral pronoun in Chinese/Japanese- according to Wicktionary.
    Keep blogging! Many thanks.
    1. When The Times puzzle says “half” it tends to mean exactly half. Glad to see our contribution but!
  19. 35 minutes, no problems except with parsing Sri, but a little slow in SW. 27 doesn’t need a texted u for you: the ‘small’ applies to ‘I’. Liked 17 – so simple yet nearly my last in. Good to get an old-fashioned word like snap to set beside the modern wannabe eco-friendly. Not a bad work-out after shepherding, entertaining and attempting to teach children all day.
  20. Well, I never heard of SNAP as lunch, and I didn’t think of ‘nap’ as ‘down’, so I went with SPAM. I did use S(RI)pe to explain SRI, and CRAM went in without too much worry. ‘Kettled’ also unknown, but with the checking letters it went in as clearly the correct answer though I couldn’t explain it. Overall, about 45 minutes. Regards.
  21. Do we know how (or why?) comments were deleted after they had been replied to? I didn’t think that was possible.

    Edited at 2013-02-11 07:06 pm (UTC)

  22. It would seem that one can delete but not edit a comment post-reply. Makes the “conversation” seem very strange and hard to follow.
  23. My first failure of the year – down to ignorance of SNAP on which I must have spent 15-20 minutes before settling on SWAN as the name of a local where one might eat a packed lunch (of swan?). (No, I wasn’t convinced either!) I agonised a bit over CRAM as well, but couldn’t see any viable alternative.

    Not my favourite puzzle.

  24. 5 down is probably the worst clue I’ve seen in the Times for a long time.
    I knew as soon as I saw it that I probably wasn’t going to solve it(!) I suspected that it was S + either dialect word for “down” or S + word for “down” plus dialect word for “packed lunch”
    So I left it blank. And I can’t ever remember deliberately doing that before.
    I think what i really dislike about it though is the pointless apostrophe S after shilling …
    So many great possibilities for SNAP as well, surely …
    1. It means “has”, as it so often does in this puzzle. Though I agree that the clue would make sense without it.
    2. I like the clue. The shilling goes with the time-frame of the main word; and “local” as in local dialect is nice. Are you sure this isn’t sour grapes?
      1. I think my comment is to a degree influenced by the fact that so many people have been stumped by it. Never a good sign. “Shilling” isn’t the problem: it’s the rest of it 🙂 It does rather have the air of the Mephisto about it, but without the friendly barred-grid checking.
  25. Jimbo liked this. I can’t understand its significance. What is the she all about? [Sneak about school houses: she has no handicap]

    Edited at 2013-02-12 12:08 am (UTC)

    1. SCRATCH usually means playing golf without a handicap (as in she plays off scratch) but it can, more obscurely, mean a player who has no handicap (she’s a scratch). I was suggesting that a male setter would likely have said “he’s a scratch” so I conjectured that the setter might be a lady
  26. Didn’t know OCA, SNAP or PINNATE, but successfully convinced myself that the wordplay for the latter two led to SEAT and PINNAGE.

    “She” is as suitable as “he” for nouns that aren’t gender-specific, but I must admit that seeing “she” tends to make me think that there’s more to the clue than meets the eye simply because I’m so used to seeing “he”. I’ve only seen “she” used in this way by one of the female setters for the Guardian/Indy and, since I think she also sets for the Times, it’s possible that this is also her handiwork (though her puzzles generally have a lot more humour than this one did). We also had a “she” recently in the clue for PEREGRINE FALCON and I seem to remember another one a couple of months back. Maybe she’s the new pants?

    Edited at 2013-02-12 01:20 am (UTC)

  27. This blog becomes almost impossible to follow after 50 postings. And it also seems that some posts have been “lost”.
    Time to consider an alternative host?
    1. Those posts were not lost, they were deliberately removed, although I’m not sure why, but it was certainly nothing to do with Live Journal.

      If you want to display a collapsed section of the thread you only need to click Expand at the side of the first hidden comment and all the hidden messages attached below it will be revealed. It works perfectly well once you are used to it.

      Edited at 2013-02-13 01:21 am (UTC)

      1. It may be browser related, but the second page didn’t display all the posts (including these). Only Tony Sever’s. The “Number of posts” total also seemed to vary depending on … what I don’t know!

        I’m aware that there are collapsed threads – I’ve always thought this was extremely user un-friendly although as you say one gets used to it. There aren’t often more than 50 posts though which makes getting used to it a slow process (!)

        1. Whatever. We’re living with it for the moment. I know the hosts have been looking at alternatives but nothing has leapt out as an obvious alternative, bearing in mind the huge archive that’s involved. Nothing’s perfect.
  28. “I sometimes wonder why constructors never clue ‘GOP’ as ‘Republican”

    Probably because you don’t see GOP as often in clues as R. But I have seen it: in fact I think it was once used to clue GOPAK

    1. They have, read above:
      Wordplay RAT=sneak C=about,circa all housed by SCH=abbreviation for school. That is, SCH houses RAT C.
      Definition: She has no handicap – think a scratch golfer with a handicap of 0, or a runner in the Stawell Gift running off scratch, with no handicap as head-start.
      Rob

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