Times 25397: Capital, capital! (as Marx said when Engels’s cheques arrived)

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 18:12

Should have been quicker in retrospect, strangely held up by 1ac and 4dn! Put this down to blogger’s nerves eh? Otherwise a fairly straight solve much aided by no fewer than four whole anagrams and one almost-whole. Far too many barely-cryptic defs for my liking.

Across
 1 MADRAS. MAD (angry), RAs. Put off here by ‘recalled’ which merely signals the change of name to Chennai in the mid-90s.
 5 TEMP(T)ING.
 9 UNFORESEEN. Anagram: refuse one + N.
10 Omitted. No, I thought, it can’t be that simple. But it was.
11 E(X)TERNAL. As in ‘external affairs’.
12 APOLLO. Ref to the Apollo missions to the moon (NASA).
13 FETE. Sounds like ‘fate’.
15 ROAD SIGN. Cryptic def.
18 SUIT,CASE.
19 HATE. HeArTiEs.
21 RAN,CID. ‘Turned’ as in ‘rank’, ‘putrid’.
23 S,LOW-DOWN.
25 LIMA. Second letter of ‘fLight’, L = LIMA in the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet. Capital of Peru.
26 GROUND,LESS.
27 INSTANCE. Anagram: ancients.
28 Omitted.
Down
 2 ANNE,X.
 3 ROOSEVELT. Anagram: lose voter.
 4 STERN,A. Def: ‘bones in front’.
 5 THE BLARNEY STONE. Cryptic def: once they’ve kissed the Stone of Eloquence, they get the ‘gift of the gab’.
 6 MANDALA,Y. Former capital of the Burmese kingdom.
 7 TOKYO. TOO (into the bargain), inc K (1000), ¥. A capital city.
 8 NEON LIGHT. Anagram of ‘lone’ inside NIGHT.
14 EDUCATION. Anagram: auctioned. (You were cautioned!)
16 SCHEDULES. Anagram: clues she’d.
17 CARDIGAN. Two defs. James Thomas Brudenel, 7th Earl of Cardigan & his eponymous garment. (He was fond of sandwiches.)
20 CORNER. Two defs: rook’s starting position in chess & the verb ‘to hem in’. (Kettle?)
22 CHAR,T.
24 WISE,R. Archaic for ‘way’ = WISE. Charles V known as Charles the Wise.

27 comments on “Times 25397: Capital, capital! (as Marx said when Engels’s cheques arrived)”

  1. 23 minutes with a minor hold-up finishing off in the NE. I didn’t actually know about Charles the Wise but otherwise this was straightforward stuff.

  2. 18:22 .. mostly straightforward but I struggled with the NW. Very neat, smart clueing, I thought.

    I like the blog title, McT. And I note your solving time and can’t help but suspect you of making some kind of overture.

    COD .. STERNA – that ‘front and back’ had me foxed for a long while.

  3. Could have been closer to 17 if I’d been quicker in giving up on 10ac; all I could think of with K_O_ was ‘kook’, which made no sense to me. And of course Mctext omits it. We had a LIMA/RIGA/PISA problem a while back; if I recall, I went for the wrong city then, but this time there was an L.
  4. Almost put in KNOW at 10ac (as we say not being “no”) and not a complex problem sounds like it has somethign to do with knowing the answer. And then the penny dropped. Sometimes when something is too direct it makes it obscure.
  5. Agreed, very straightforward but reasonably entertaining none the less. 15 minutes to solve.

    We should mention that the Earl of Cardigan led the charge of the Light Brigade after “misunderstanding” Lord Raglan’s orders.

    Also any ladies tempted to kiss the Blarney Stone would be well advised to wear trousers if they wish to retain their modesty


  6. Another quickie today, with all correct and only a couple of unknowns (Earl of Cardigan, and Charles the Wise).

    Much helped by the geographical tone and numerous anagrams (and lack of any sporting references…!)

  7. 24m with all but 6d and 12a completed but still no joy after a further 16m of head scratching so in went the towel and off came the hat to the setter. I thought 1a was a particularly neat clue and had me trying all sorts of reversals! Also flirted for a couple of minutes with BACKDROP for 23a which almost fitted the cryptic. Fortunately then the biggy in the middle clicked and I had to think again. Thanks for the blog.
  8. Funny puzzle this. I found almost all of it extremely easy and had all but 25ac solved in well under 10 minutes. I remembered the LIMA/PISA/RIGA thing from a while back but after staring at them for nearly ten minutes I couldn’t make head or tail of the clue and bunged in PISA, which at least had an S for “second” in it. Clearly I need to bone up on the IRSA.
  9. I had almost the same experience as keriothe, except that time was about twice as much, because Chrome fell over and came back with a blank grid, and clock still running, Spent long time trying possible pronunciations of all the cities I could fit, for a plausible homophone, but eventually chose Pisa, for the S and PI from ‘pilot’.
    Kickself for not seeing right city, as I’d actually completed the Listener “How to ___” 🙁
  10. 16:19 after sharing in the widespread weighing up of LIMA/RIGA/PISA. I stabbed all around before getting there, even though my very first thought was that the clue might involve as=”A”s to a pilot…(no, that’s A for Alpha, I thought, that can’t have anything to do with it, forget the radio alphabet)…talk about overcomplicating things for yourself.
  11. Romped through this in 11 minutes, fast for me, no slow-you-down clues today, makes a change from my recent struggles. Don’t attempt the Blarney stone if you have a fear of heights (or, indeed, are wearing a mini-skirt).
  12. One missing today – 12A Apollo. Kicking myself given my interest in space and because the Apollo moon programme was mentioned on Radio 4 only yesterday evening during the obituary of Reg Turnill (veteran BBC aerospace correspondent who has died at the age of 97).
    Found most of this straightforward but was held up for a while in the bottom right corner by Cardigan, Groundless and Wiser.
  13. Have deleted about 12 spams today. I’m going off duty now, so can others with ops keep a look out?

    Ta!

    Edited at 2013-02-13 02:04 pm (UTC)

  14. A Monday puzzle on Wednesday. 20 minutes, helped by 5 dn, where ‘kiss’ in the clue was enough to get the answer immediately. I didn’t see how TOO could be “Put into the bargain”, but having read the blog I see that ‘Put’ must be an imperative or past participle filler.
    Nice deception in “now recalled” in 1. I was toying with AD reversed for quite a while.
  15. Straightforward, 32 minutes, agree it should have been in on the Monday. I’m still feeling unreasonably resentful about that.

    Thanks both,
    Chris.

  16. On behalf of the less rapid solvers, I thought this was extremely good. 59 minutes, no aids and on the old fashioned folded paper. Loi 13 ac fooled by ‘a’ lot. Cod 20 dn.
  17. About 15 minutes, ending with RANCID/CARDIGAN. No real problems, and not much to talk about. Certainly nothing to complain about either. The Blarney clue was entertaining. Regards.
  18. 5.05 for me. I made another ludicrously slow start, but then suddenly got going and went through reasonably briskly apart from last-minute hang-ups with LIMA and ROSTRA.

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