Times 25,408

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
15:04 on the Club timer; as this included the usual blogger’s Extra Time, spent checking I was at least 90% certain on my parsing of everything before submitting, I think we can classify this as being on the straightforward side of the street; though I admit I’m not entirely satisfied with my reading of 15 down, which is…well, we shall see what it is.

Sorry to disappoint early birds this week, as today’s blog comes from a holiday cottage on the banks of the River Wye. I remain vigilant for the otters which previous visitors have noted in the Visitors’ Book.

Across
1 PROPOSAL – PROP(=support) + (ALSO)*.
9 ANTIHERO – (HIT)rev. in A NERO.
10 ALAS – ALASKA.
11 THOROUGHBRED – THO’ ROUGH Bishop RED. Cardinal Red is, unsurprisingly, the sort of vivid scarlet won by senior men of the cloth.
13 LINEAR – Area in LINER.
14 ROAD RAGE =”ROWED” + (GEAR)*.
15 UNWINDS – WIND(=breeze) in (SUN)*.
16 BREWERY – [River, EWER] in BY(=”past”). The local being the pub, of course.
20 PUNISHED – PUN I SHED.
22 ENTRAP – (PARENT)*, based on the “trap” meaning of gin.
23 COMMONWEALTH – Maiden in (CLOTHEWOMAN). Virginia, like Massachusetts, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, is constitutionally a “commonwealth” rather than a “state”.
25 ISIS – “leads life”=IS, so doubling that gives the Egyptian goddess.
26 ECLIPSES – CLIPS in (SEE)rev.
27 ENGAGING – double def.
 
Down
2 RELIGION – L,1 in REGION.
3 POST MERIDIEM – (PRIMEMinisterDOESIT)*. Nice use of the two common PM abbreviations together.
4 SAVOURED – A Volume in SOURED.
5 LABOURS – LA BOURSE is the Paris stock exchange, and, wikipedia tells me, various other Francophone cities.
6 STIGMA – Time in SIGMA, the Greek “s” in Σωκράτης.
7 TEAR – clever double def. “TEAR” (rhymes with “hare”) means “rush”, while TEAR(“rhymes with “here”) is a sign of grief, i.e. they look the same but don’t sound it.
8 SOLDIERY – OLDIE in SuRlY.
12 BIRD WATCHING – does the photographer’s instruction “Watch the birdie!” apply outside the UK? Do other nationalities say cheese?
15 UNPACKED – When presented with U_P_C_E_, I immediately thought “Well, this is UNPACKED…no, hang on, it could be UNPICKED…no, carry on, it’s clearly referring to unpacking a suitcase, so I was right first time. UNPICKED fits the definition, but means nothing in the context of “a case” of any sort, so the first one is clearly right” (and so it proved, once I submitted all correct). However, when it came to unpicking the clue for the blog, as it were, I hesitated. I am always reluctant to describe something as a weak clue, as it usually just means I’ve missed something very obvious; so am I missing something here? I can only conclude it’s a cryptic def. but when I first read it, I assumed that the case was a suitcase, rather than a legal case, or any other sort of case, so it barely came across as cryptic at all.
17 RIESLING – Rum I.E. SLING.
18 REASSIGN – ASS in REIGN.
19 ADVERSE – A.D. VERSE; the New Testament covers the period after the birth of Christ, which is by definition A.D.
21 HONEST – througH ONE’S Teeth.
24 MILK – (1 in KLM)rev. “Exploit” as in “capitalise on”.

34 comments on “Times 25,408”

  1. It’s interesting that this seemed to trip up some of the very best solvers. I never even thought of “unpicked” until reading the Forum afterwards. The “case” just nailed it for me. Where I dithered was between “meridian” and “meridiem”. Obviously the anagram is clear but rather than stick around to unpick or unpack it a quick look at Virginia gave the answer. 24 minutes and I’d have been faster but I’d been making a few unforced errors lately so took some extra time to proof-read.
  2. 15dn Unpack = analyse is in COED.

    40 minutes exactly for this one. It has somehow managed to pass me by that Virginia or any other United State is officially a COMMONWEALTH and the required meaning of UNPACKED was unfamiliar too. But it was a good puzzle.

    Edited at 2013-02-26 12:06 pm (UTC)

  3. No problems here and home in 20 minutes. It has to be UNPACKED to meet the “case” part of the wording but hardly a world-stopper of a clue.

    Had vague memories of somebody once explaining to me why some US States aren’t states but are commonwealths and guessed Virginia had to be one of them

  4. 31 minutes, of which several were spent considering the options unlocked (until punished went in) unpicked / unpacked. Then saw the relevance of unpacked in a ‘decode a compressed file’ sense, which I presume is how this clue works. Otherwise an easy to medium difficulty, pleasant puzzle.
  5. One early bird here who’s now quite late and envious of otter sightings! My only hesitation, too, was at 15dn. UNPACKED as “analysed” is fine for me — so DEF #1. But “what’s in case”?? Couldn’t be sure.

    21dn (HONEST) is very nicely hidden in a very relevant surface. Double √√ for that. [[Of which: you have a typo there, Tim. TEST for TEETH.]]

    Off topic: took Vinyl’s advice and did the Paul prize puzzle in another place. Paul is obviously old enough to remember My Word on BBC radio. Explanation (with spoiler) available on request.

    Edited at 2013-02-26 12:20 pm (UTC)

    1. Perhaps I begin to see why “what’s in case” caused so many problems. My husband has never been known to “unpack” a suitcase. Outbound he just leaves everything in situ and rootles around to find what he wants. Inbound he throws the entire contents straight in the laundry basket.
      Yes McT, please do spoil the Paul Guardian prize puzzle for me, it’s an idgy bidgy and I missed the “My Word” connection completely. I agree with Vinyl about THAT clue however.
  6. Took me a while to get going on this one and ended up solving it “bottom up”. Hadn’t heard of UNPACK in the sense of “analyse” so I originally thought the clue was a slightly cryptic definition. I didn’t know that Virginia was a commonwealth, though I knew from college basketball that there was a Virginia Commonwealth University so perhaps I should have realised.
  8. Got all but…RELIGION today. Must have had a mental block. Couldn’t parse STIGMA, plumped for UNPACKED with a ?, and hadn’t come across the fact that certain ‘states’ are COMMONWEALTHs rather than states, so many thanks for explaining those.

  9. 47 mins, ending with milk where I wanted mine. Tried to fit our local tyrant, Mao, into 9, which slowed things up a bit. Liked thoroughbred and proposal. Unpacked is a familiar term from linguistics, so no problem there.
  10. 16:37 but I went for unpicked on the basis that it fitted the def. I didn’t even consider unpacked as I’m not familiar with the required meaning and I still don’t see how “what’s in case” is supposed to work. Pfft.

    On the “birdie” point at the weekend my mother produced a very old photo of her paternal grandmother with the first 6 of her eventual 11 children. When my younger daughter asked why none of them were smiling I’m afraid I told her that ths was before cheese had been invented so they didn’t know what to say.

    1. Isn’t it just that analysed does double duty as part of the cryptic as well as being the definition?
    2. That’s quite wicked… and very funny. Your poor daughter’s going to grow up with cheese-related trust issues.
  11. 12:05 … I had a college prof who ‘unpacked’ anything and everything. I did wonder if ‘what’s in case’ was antithetical but decided I was over-thinking it and moved on.

    COMMONWEALTH familiar from American crime novels and from Boston Legal, which generally involved Alan Shore antagonizing the Commonwealth of Virginia. – on edit, antagonizing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts! – My apologies to Boston. And to Virginia.

    COD .. SOLDIERLY

    Edited at 2013-02-26 06:26 pm (UTC)

  12. A slowish but steady solve. I had no major problems with this except that I’ve never heard of UNPACKED meaning “analysed”. I dithered with UNPICKED before settling on the correct answer. Like Sotira, I have American crime novels to thank for COMMONWEALTH. 28 minutes. Ann
  13. Unpicked for me. That is most upsetting, I have to say. 37 minutes otherwise, and agree re SOLDIERLY — very nice indeed.

    Thank you, as ever, for a handy blog.

    Chris.

  15. Didn’t find this one easy. Had five missing (Alas, Religion, Milk, Eclipses, Adverse) and one wrong (Unpacked).
    Tim – I didn’t understand Stigma so thanks for the explanation.
  16. The SW corner held me up longer than it ought as with hindsight I can’t really see why it did. Solved in 11 minutes on a bus (before I am allowed to drive again, and have to return to full time working 🙁 , I am trying to decide whether where you solve makes a difference as usually I would solve this at my desk over lunch).
  17. 14 minutes, but quite a dull solve. I’m so used to one acquaintance “unpacking” everything that I put it in without a moment’s thought. I suppose it’s a kind of cryptic definition which just plays on two variations on “case”.
    While solving, I thought BIRD-WATCHING was also just a feeble cryptic definition, and there’s no particular reason why it should not so be regarded, but “watch the bird(ie)” did occur post-solve, with the niggle (satisfied, I suppose, by the question mark) that’s it’s always “birdie” to any self respecting photographer.
    My daughter in law is from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which she claims diminishes the total number of (United) States by one.
  18. Messed up on MILK and could only think of MINE but then couldn’t fit anything across.

    By the way, I don’t know about other countries, but the French do not say FROMAGE for obvious reasons. They use a marmoset which is ouistiti

  19. About 20 minutes, but with UNPICKED, because I thought it fit the definition. I saw that UNPACKED fitted the ‘suitcase’ bit, but I’d never heard it being used as ‘analysed’ until reading it here in the blog. Frankly, I hadn’t known of ‘unpick’ either until it appeared in a puzzle a few weeks ago. I think if I used either word to mean ‘analyze’ in a conversation over here, people would look at me as though I had three heads, so I’ll stick with plain old ‘analyze’. COD to HONEST, very nicely done. Regards.
  20. 23 minutes, all plain fare though I liked the old word soldiery. I think 15 is OK if one has in mind the two cases. But the solution’s liable to jump out at one too soon for the aftertaste to take effect. COD Isis just for the surface. Little icing on this cake.
  21. After a slow start it all fell into place in 29.53. I never hesitated over 15d being well aware of both meanings but thought it rather feeble.STIGMA gets my vote for COD for the neat surface though nothing seemed as hard eventually as the my initial slowness had suggested.
  22. 21m.
    I didn’t understand UNPACKED at the time of solving and after reading all the comments above I still don’t. I was familiar with the “analysed” sense of the word but I can’t see how the rest of the clue is supposed to work.
    POST MERIDIEM caused a bit of difficulty because I’ve never heard this version of POSTMERIDIAN (which according to Chambers has to be one word) so I had that in until thinking 23 might be COMMONWEALTH made me revisit the anagram fodder. Like others I vaguely remembered that some states weren’t called states, which was enough.
    Anyway it was all for nought because I bunged in SOLDIERS, which in turn led me to bung in BREWERS. Clearly at no point did I concern myself with the actual clue. Definitely an Elmo day today.
  23. Did this during breaks at the pub quiz, so snatches, often with people peeking over my shoulder and asking “how did you get that”, so fortunately I could explain everything, and I think I had recalled seeing “unpacked” in that context.
  24. 9:50 for me, ending with a lot of dithering over UNPACKED/UNPICKED before finally plumping for the right one, but very nervously as what’s UNPACKED is no longer “in case”.

    I too bunged in SOLDIERS overhastily, but couldn’t make BREWERS work so read the clue to 8dn again more carefully. (Phew!)

    Edited at 2013-02-26 11:14 pm (UTC)

    1. But what’s in a case (e.g. a suitcase) is UNPACKED when its owner arrives at the destination.

      I’ve been really surprised by all the discussion over the second part of this clue both here and in the forum.

      Edited at 2013-02-27 04:38 am (UTC)

      1. I understand that you might unpack what’s in a suitcase but I still don’t understand how you get “unpacked” from “what’s in case”.
        1. Surely this is just a case of ANALYSED being used in the cryptic as well as being the definition. i.e. Analysed = unpacked and “analysed the contents of a suitcase” = unpacked. I realise, of course, it may seem simple to me only because I have got it utterly wrong.

          david_ch

          1. I don’t think that’s allowed in the Times. I think the clue is of the “definition and subsidiary indication” type, the two have to be separate.
            The best I can come up with is that it’s just a cryptic definition where the grammatical meaning of “case” is being used. I suppose in lit crit you might analyse the significance of the case of a word.

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