Times Cryptic – 25465

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Another pangram! This was a very lively and interesting puzzle that was a pleasure to solve and took me 45 minutes. My only real problem was in the SE where a long Arabic word and an unfamiliar Russian spelling intersect.

* = anagram

Across
1 SOJOURNED – SO (it follows),JOURNEy (endless travel), D (duke)
9 EQUINOX – sEQUIN (something shiny, not lead), OX (neat)
10 TICKING – dd – one a strong cotton fabric used for mattresses and pillows
11 PROVE – Playwright,ROVE (tour widely)
12 NUT CUTLET – CUTLEry (all but last pair of spoons, say) inside NUTTy (chopped bananas)
13 AT TIMES – MITT (hand) inside SEA (waves) all reversed
15 TOP-UP – TO PUP (purpose of one that would drop litter). The definition is ‘serving’.
17 JOLLY – dd – a day out in a good mood.
18 MAJOR – JAM (future promise as in “jam tomorrow” reversed), OR (men)
19 CASTE – CAST (players), E (England)
20 MUDLARK – MUD (damaging allegations – no shortage of these around at the moment!), L, ARK (ancient vessel). This is a person who collects debris on river-beaches etc. Some of our older contributors may remember the 1950 film of that name starring Andrew Ray (Ted’s son), Alec Guinness as D’Israeli and Irene Dunne as Queen Victoria.
23 IZVESTIYA – Anagram of EASY jazZ ITV1, more usually spelt without the Y, I believe.
25 ON-OFF – ONe-OFF (unique, minus its E)
27 SLOVENE – VEN (archdeacon) inside SLOE (sort of gin)
28 ERITREA – A, ER (royal), TIRE (flag) all reversed
29 HUSH MONEY – US (our party), HM (Queen) inside HONEY (sweetener).

Down
1 SATINY – TIN (metal) inside SAY (for example)
2 JACK-THE-LAD – JACK (lift), HALTED*
3 UBIQUITY – QUIT (abandoned) inside anagram of I BUY
4 NIGEL – NI (Northern Ireland), GEL (posh girl)
5 DEMO TAPES – D (daughter), TOME (volume) reversed, APES (does like)
6 OUTPUT – OUT (not correct), PUT (place) with the definition as in “fruit of one’s labours”
7 INFO – Hidden and reversed
8 EXTENSOR – Anagram of SEX TORE New
14 MUJAHIDEEN – A JUMp (a brief leap) all reversed, HIDE (shield), EN (opponents at bridge)
16 PECKINPAH – PECKINg (kissing misses beginning to Get), PAH (contemptuous response). Sam, the US director 1925-1984, was noted for his gritty and often excessively violent films such as ‘Straw Dogs’ and ‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia’. His name is also associated with a Monty Python sketch that imagines his version of Julian Slade’s whimsical 1950s musical ‘Salad Days’.
17 JUMBO JET – Let’s hope the expulsion is from the front end!
18 MENS ROOM – Anagram of English MORMONS
21 AFFIRM – FIR (Christmas tree) inside A FM (a band for broadcast, that used to be called VHF)
22 WATERY – TE (note) inside WARY (cautious)
24 VISAS – VISit (pay a call without it), AS (when)
26 OVID – VOID (space) with its V moved down

25 comments on “Times Cryptic – 25465”

  1. One of the rare occasions when I have completed in under half an hour. A background in foreign news came in useful for MUJAHIDEEN, IZVESTIYA, and as I live just a few miles from the SLOVENE border, that was straightforward, too. PECKINPAH not the most obvious of directors, but a friend of mine was a fan of his, so that helped. Last one in was 11ac — don’t know why it took so long to get.
  2. All sorts of trouble in NE corner after confidently banging in ASYLUM at 6d.
    1. All sorts of trouble in the NW after confidently bunging in adjourned. I thought ‘astina’ sounded pretty glossy and was disappointed that my OED disagreed.
  3. Thought I was going to be helped by suspecting the pangram early on. Not to be. And stuck on the simpler ones such as SATINY where the “with gloss” def. was well hidden. Ditto my last-ins: 6dn and 11ac. Should have been quicker under the circumstances.

    BTW, Izvestiya (=News) is still being published.

  4. A tricky but largely fair puzzle. The intersecting 14D and 23A could cause difficulty although the wordplay is precise. I derived both but checked the spellings used here in Chambers before entering in the grid. Didn’t recall the director so also looked him up to verify. I thought 17D a bit strange and wholly endorse Jack’s sentiments.
  5. Probably shouldn’t have tried this under the influence of Diazepam (how do people manage with that stuff all the time?) but it looked tough anyway, and maybe 33 minutes was pretty good.
    The excess of the alphabet’s coyer letters made it feel a bit like a club monthly, which sometimes makes things easier, there being fewer words with J, Z and so on to pick from.
    My missus says IZVESTIYA is an exact transliteration of Известия, the backward R providing the YA bit.
    Thanks to Jack for HUSH MONEY – that it might be an &lit didn’t occur so it remained an entered mystery.
    Lots of very clever stuff here, but no CoD in a set I was relieved to have completed. Except, perhaps TICKING – could that have been a flash of humour?
  6. I agree – tricky but fair. Strangely, I had no trouble with the MUJAHIDEEN/IZVESTIYA cross-over, being familiar with the former and dimly remembering the less usual spelling of the latter. But I made a meal of the NW corner where I followed Ulaca by initially bunging in ADJOURNED at 1 ac and then trying to find evidence that ACTINO was some kind of gloss paint or finishing. I thought HUSH MONEY very good.
  7. 17m. I thought this was a smashing puzzle. Some tricky vocabulary and wordplay but it all seemed fair, with the possible exception of PECKINPAH: a bit tough if you haven’t heard of him. MUJAHIDEEN and IZVESTIYA required close attention to the wordplay, and in the case of IZVESTIYA I waited until I had all the checkers.
  8. 18:27, which felt like a good time for a highly entertaining challenge – probably the best of the week in what’s been a top quality run of puzzles (though I admit some beginners might beg to differ). I learned a bit of Russian back in the days of the USSR, and my teacher’s hoary old Russian joke was that there were two papers, Pravda (The Truth) and Izvestiya (the News); unfortunately, there was no news in The Truth, and no truth in The News. Hello, is this thing on?
  9. I thought this was another top quality puzzle. I needed to understand the wordplay fully before I was confident of the spelling of MUJAHIDEEN. 17a followed by 17d were my last two in, and after I had realised what the answer was I thought the clue for the latter was actually pretty good. Finished with full wordplay understanding in 24 mins. A couple of years ago a puzzle like this would have taken me three times as long.

    Andy B.

  10. 29 minutes – usually I’m heading to the dictionary by that point but I was enjoying the tricky definitions and cunning wordplay. Came here fully expecting to find my anagram guess was incorrect but for once I lucked out. Really tricky fun puzzle!
  12. A slow start with none of the across clues solved on the first reading, but once I got a few downs it all flowed fairly smoothly, taking 45 minutes in all, but one wrong at 6, where I entered PULPIT, thinking it was some obscure CD that I couldn’t quite fathom.

    I worked out the spelling of MUJAHIDEEN from the wordplay, but I didn’t recognize it as the one I know; I see there are three given in Chambers, but not this one. Ditto TEA.

    Very good clues, possibly the best of the last three days’ offerings.

    1. The latest Chambers (12th Edition) has 4 versions of the Islamic fundamentalists of which the one in this grid is the first
  13. 32.29 completed but errors in NW my undoing with adjourned and hucking leading to ashine so 3 wrong entries from one careless misread! Enjoyable though and entirely fair, even if TICKING was new to me.
  14. Holy Smoke! About an hour for what I obviously found a pretty tough puzzle. But finally came all correct, LOI was OUTPUT. I wasn’t familiar with JACK-THE-LAD so that made the left hand side pretty opaque for quite a while. ON-OFF was pretty good, though it too took me a long time to spot it. Regards.
  15. Strewth. About 55 minutes, allowing for a few interruptions. Unusual spellings for the fighters and the newspaper but nevertheless a splendid puzzle with some delightful and subtle twists in the definitions. It has that elusive quality, a liberal understated wit, a draft of vintage cool’d a long age…(exit Keats dragged off and burbling…)
  16. One clue unfinished 6d – am still not impressed with OUTPUT = FRUIT – and spelt Sam the director ending PAW so invented WISH MONEY. Otherwise a super puzzle, 35 minutes.
    1. I think this covers it: SOED – fruit (6) sing. & in pl. Anything (concrete or abstract) produced by an activity, process, etc.; product, outcome. ME.
  17. 17:04 for me – another desperately slow start, this time followed by a slow middle and a slow finish! I rashly bunged in SACKING for 10ac, but fortunately wasn’t delayed too long by it once I had the other checked letters from 1dn in place. No problem with PECKINPAH, even though I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of his films (I’ve deliberately avoided Straw Dogs).

    Another splendid puzzle with some wonderfully inventive clues.

  18. Si impossible! Glad I found this site or would still be struggling. I got nut cutlet top up equinox and ovid but all for reasons I couldn’t quite understand and hush money and eritrea for completely the wrong reasons … far too hard for me! Didn’t get mujahideen or izvestiya or major or output or prove. Phffffph. Very tough, I thought.

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