Times 25407 – “Be sure to hide the fishes….

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 35 minutes

Music: Mahler, Symphony #1, Horenstein/LSO (yes, on Unicorn Records)

This should have been quite an easy puzzle. It is heavily dependent on general knowledge, and in general, I had the knowledge. Unfortunately, there were two important things I did not know that held me up considerably on my last one in, and in the end I had to guess and Google. Look what I found!

At least the two long ones were quite self-evident, making for a quick start. A few around the edges proved a little stubborn, though, and needed careful attention to the cryptic to crack. I didn’t immediately grasp who Juan Domingo was, or what kind of dissenter was required.

One other little semi-off-topic item. If you want to see the one of the most outrageous clues ever published, I suggest you take a look at this week’s Guardian prize puzzle. The whole thing is really quite entertaining, but there is one bit that absolutely off the charts – definitely not recommended for our conservative harrumpers. Since this is a prize puzzle, I can say no more.

Across
1 ALCATRAZ, A(L CAT RA)Z. I thought of Stubbs immediately, of course, but no dice.
5 SEAMUS, SEA MUS[t]. This is actually the Irish-language equivalent of James, and entered the language through the French pronunciation of Iacomus.
10 SQUARE THE CIRCLE, double definition, one jocular.
11 RATTLER, double definition, a rattling good one
12 TEA GOWN, anagram of GOT A NEW. Not a garment much in demand nowadays.
13 SCOTSMAN, S(COT S[ergeant]M[ajor])AN.
15 HAHAS, HAHA + S[on], a GK-type clue.
18 ROACH, [rep]ROACH. A simple subtraction clue if you know the fish.
20 DREAMILY, DR E(A)MILY, very cute.
23 CANASTA, C(AN)AST + A[ce], easy enough if you know the card game.
25 PARABLE, P[enetrate] A RAB[b]LE.
26 BEER AND SKITTLES, BEER, SKITTLES, ‘eating’ AND (with), a very feeble sort of clue.
27 TASTER, TA(S)TER, where taters are ‘common’ in the sense of being slangy.
28 WESLEYAN, anagram of L[ine] SEEN WAY. I wanted to put ‘naysayer’ but couldn’t justify it.
 
Down
1 ASSERT. As the betters say, ‘a dead cert’.
2 CRUSTACEA, anagram of CURSE A CAT. Waiter, do you serve crabs?
3 Omitted!
4 ASTER, [poet]ASTER. Another simple subtraction clue – if you have the GK.
6 EPITAPH, cryptic definition.
7 MACHO, CAM upside down + HO[use].
8 SKEGNESS, S + KEG(S[tate] E[nrolled] N[urse] upside down)S. My near-downfall. I did not know the resort or the abbreviation, but strongly suspected that it was one of those northern seaside places ending in ‘-ness’. ‘Sheerness’ was a no-go, but this seemed to fit. Bingo!
9 SENTENCE, double definition, more GK.
14 MIDLANDS, DIM upside down + LANDS. I admit, I didn’t even look at the cryptic.
16 HILLBILLY, HILL(BILL)Y.
17 BRICKBAT, BRICK + BAT. ‘Brick’ seems to be early 20th-century English school slang, the sort of thing you would find in Swallows and Amazons or the Chronicles of Narnia. My childhood reading pays off here.
19 HOSTAGE, HOST + A + E.G. upside down. A lot of this puzzle seems to be upside down!
21 MARITAL, MAR(IT)AL, i.e. IT enclosed in an anagram of ALARM.
22 PERSON, PER(S[aint])ON. I didn’t recognize who was meant, but eventually saw how the literal worked. A good clue!
24 NEEDS, sounds like KNEADS. This needs must be the answer, right?
25 PEKOE, PEK(O)E. Pekoe is actually a technical term of tea grading having to do with the size of the leaf, but we can’t expect setters to be up on this sort of thing.

31 comments on “Times 25407 – “Be sure to hide the fishes….”

  1. Romped through this one until the BRICKBAT corner got to me. The Q and Z at the top left led to unfulfilled expectations of a pangram.

    Agree that the clue for PERSON is very good. Like the def: “He’s the third”. Have we ever had Skeggy before? Probably best forgotten anyway.

  2. 38 minutes with the 1s, 8dn and 11ac taking me past the 30. Didn’t know SQUARE = ‘bribe’ but Collins confirms it; otherwise plain sailing.
  4. 15:55 .. rather ground to a halt in the lower half, especially not having a clue about BEER AND SKITTLES meaning pleasure – shameful, really, for someone who grew up in rural Gloucestershire where there wasn’t much else but beer and skittles.

    SKEGNESS is one of my favourite words.

  5. 44 minutes, with half of that taken on half a dozen clues, not helped by chucking SCOTTISH in at 13. Also didn’t know square = offer inducements, and hardly knew what beer and skittles meant, so the two long ones held me up a fair bit. Enjoyed the SE corner for the entertaining visions it conjured of a meeting between the Brit nonconformist and the Argie with the famous wife.
  7. 20 minutes plus another 10 working (almost) fruitlessly on 22, lacking the vital piece of knowledge about the other famous fascist, but don’t cry for me…
    In my desperate scramble, the various bits of the clue suggested Don (Juan), Sun (Domingo), E (thE third) S or ST (saint) and possibly a proper name (He) as the definition, plus several alternative variations, none of which permitted a six letter answer fitting the crossers. So it’s either a brilliantly disguised definition plus a brilliantly devious bit of wordplay, or a dirty rotten trick designed to annoy people like me. I wonder how many other politicians/people can be recognised (and clued) by their first names? Margaret Hilda, perhaps?
    BEER AND SKITTLES held out for ages as I tried to recall that less famous musical by Cole Porter.
    Otherwise, no real difficulties, though rating well above the traditional (but surely now rare) Monday Easy.
    CoD to Dr Emily and her reverie.
  8. Monday quickie for me, 14 minutes with SKEGNESS taking 3 or 4 at the end, once I’d moved away from TUN for barrel. Skegness is one of those few UK resorts I’ve never visited and I suspect shall never need to. An enjoyable puzzle. My CoD PERSON, I didn’t know his middle name but I twigged Mr Peron.
  9. I had three missing today (Aster, Sentence and Dreamily). Thanks Vinyl1 for explaining those ones. The Dr Emily clue is fun, now that I see how it works.
    Didn’t know Rattler meant “good example”.
    It’s topical to see Hostage in the grid given Argo won the Oscar for Best Picture last night.
  10. 16:05.

    22 was my LOI but with all the checkers and the “He’s the third” part the penny dropped and I was able to trust that “Juan Domingo” was Mr. Evita.

    Unusually 1 across went in first.

    Pretty standard fare in all respects.

  11. I thought marking a boundary was exactly what a haha didn’t do – it’s a hidden ditch or wall which prevents grazing animals getting into the formal gardens, thereby allowing the owner an uninterrupted vista over his property
    1. That is all correct (anonymous) but don’t forget Terry Pratchett’s hoho created by Bergholt Stuttley (Bloody Stupid) Johnson. 25 ft deep with spikes at the bottom.

      Edited at 2013-02-25 10:15 pm (UTC)

  12. Stormed through this one in double quick time (despite not knowing that meaning of SQAURE, or that meaning or B AND S), but came to a halt with three left: SENTENCE (aargh… I had even thought of bird meaning to do time), and the two in the bottom right. Again, I had worked out all the letters for WESLEYAN, but couldn’t manage to get them in the right order. And PERSON. Good clue.

  14. Indeed a ha-ha does mark a boundary, between one’s garden and the rest of one’s grounds, where the livestock is; it just does so unobtrusively, so as not to spoil one’s far-reaching views. And a cam is certainly an eccentric. ODO definition (of cam): “a disc or wheel mounted eccentrically…” Chambers (of eccentric): “Any device taking rectilinear motion from a revolving shaft.” And Orange Pekoe is not just a grade but also a type of tea, according to Wiki: “a term used in the Western tea trade to describe a particular genre of black teas” so maybe the setter is up on tea after all. It wouldn’t surprise me 🙂
    Anyway, I thought this was a very good crossword, well done setter. Don’t listen to them!
    1. When one has Jane Austen’s “extensive grounds” one’s haha is certainly a boundary. Nice catch Jerry.
  15. No time to post due to, ironically, watching Argo last night while solving, prior to its winning the award. After it was over, I saw WESLEYAN, the Peronista clue, and then finally guessed at SKEGNESS and looked it up to see if it existed. Hadn’t heard of it before. “He’s the third” gets my COD. Regards.
    1. Did you enjoy Argo Kevin? I must say I did but then I could watch Alan Arkin read the phone book. Did you see him as Freud in The 7Percent Solution? Daniel Day Lewis’s in-laws once lived in my NYC apt building (when they weren’t in Connecticut) and the UK Times actually published my letter re his father-in-law’s obit. Fame by association.
      1. Hi Olivia. Yes, I enjoyed it. I’m not much of a movie person, but I thought it quite good, especially as it was based on actual events. To illustrate my non-fan status re movies, of the other nominated films this year, I saw exactly none. I do intend to see Lincoln sometime, though.
  16. 11m. Didn’t come to this until late, and seem to have been on the wavelength. Or in other words, all of the somewhat arcane stuff happened to be somewhat arcane stuff that I knew.
    The one thing I definitely didn’t know was who Juan Domingo was. Fortunately I spotted the trick quite quickly: this is the sort of clue that can detain me for a long time and make me cross.
    I wasn’t entirely sure what BEER AND SKITTLES meant either but I didn’t really need to know.

    Edited at 2013-02-25 05:48 pm (UTC)

  18. Well strap my boots. 14.25. Probably the one time in the year I break quarter of an hour. Seemed somewhat uninspired clueing. There’s a tea-gown in Ezra Pound (Hugh Selwyn Mauberly); otherwise don’t think I’ve met the word. I like the working girl.
  19. A rather labouring 39.40 so under the 40m at least. Completed most of it in 28m but after 6 minutes of head scratching thought properly about 13a and realised I’d goofed with SCOTTISH falling into the bear pit I’d hospital equals H so well done setter; hats off here! And once corrected it all fell quickly. An enjoyable one for me and my COD to PERSON.
  20. 9:19 here for a straightforward, enjoyable start to the week.

    Thanks for the pointer to Paul’s Guardian prize puzzle. Very droll.

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