Times 25500 – Good To The Last Drop

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
What a lovely puzzle that has everything and then some. No gimme clues at all as each one had to be unravelled painstakingly – thus the headline, inspired by a wee dram of Glen Morangie, probably the best-tasting single malt in the world. But when you are blogging this, it can also be agonisingly baffling to the end. Mercifully, I survived the ordeal. Indeed one of the best puzzles I have tackled this year.

ACROSS
1 FLOSS What a tichy start. F (fluorine) LOSS (reduction)
4 JACK SPRAT JACKS (lifts as in car for tyre-change) P (piano, soft) RAT (peach, grass, betray, inform on) For the uninitiated, a nursey rhyme which I learned more than half a century ago and can still remember
 Jack Sprat could eat no fat
 His wife could eat no lean
 And so betwixt the two of them
 They licked the platter clean
9 RUSSIFIED Ins of US’S (America’s) + IF (condition) + IE in RD (road, way) …. like the Russians, Cold War rivals of the USA
10 ARGUS ARGUE (debate) with East replaced by South, East’s opponent at bridge. Argus Panoptes (Argus “All-Eyes”), a giant with a hundred eyes, set to guard the heifer Io. His eyes were transferred after his death to the peacock’s tail.
11 X MARKS THE SPOT X (ten in Roman numeral) + *(MPS TAKE SHORT)
14 rha deliberately omitted
15 DECK QUOITS DECK (52 cards in a pack or deck) + ins of O (ring) in QUITS (even) for a game played with a rubber ring on a badminton court. I remember playing this in primary school.
18 LOBSTER POT *(PORt BOTTLES)
19 AGUE VAGUE (faint) minus V (very) for a fever with hot and cold fits
21 ILL-CONSIDERED ILL (diseased) C (cold) ON (leg side in cricket) SIDE (left perhaps) RED (angry-looking) with rash, adjective as def
24 LLAMA L (left) LAMA (priest) for a American transport animal of the camel family, also prized for its wool
25 TRIATHLON Ins of TH (Thursday) in TRIAL (test) + ON
27 FLINTLOCK F (female) LINT (dressing) LOCK (hair) for an ancient weapon defined misleadingly as piece
28 DIVVY Ins of VV (two volumes) in DIY (do it yourself, work about house) for slang word for dividend or share of profit with def split

DOWN
1 FOR EXAMPLE Ins of O (old) + REX (king) in F (loudly) + AMPLE (enough)
2 OPS HOPS (vaults) with H dropped in Cockney style for operations (facelifts, perhaps)
3 STINKY Ins of INK (something used to mark) in STY (pen). However, I am inclined to the neater parsing by jackkt belowST (i.e Saint, Mark, for one), INKY (marked with a pen perhaps).
4 JOINT HEIR JOIN THE Inland Revenue (become a tax inspector)
5 CADGE Ins of D (anything from A to G can be clued as a note) in CAGE John Milton Cage Jr. (1912 –1992) was an American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist
6 STAMP OUT Ins of AM (morning) P (first letter of period) in STOUT (beer) In the East, stout (Guinness, what else?) is stout and beer is Carlsberg or Tiger or San Miguel.
7 RIGHT WINGER *(WITH GINGER Runs)
8 TOSS Quick self-explanatory after “Heads or tails?
12 AZERBAIJANI *(Judge IN Eastern BAZAAR) + I (one) When I solved this, I knew a pangram was in the making
13 ASCENDANCY AS (in part of, as in She acted as Joan of Arc) CE (Church of England) + ins of D (daughter) in NANCY (French city)
16 KNOBSTICK Ins of *(BITS) in KNOCK (innings, supported by Chambers)
17 STALWART The said agent should stall (prevent or slow down or frustrate) WART, a small hard excrescence on the skin
20 EDITED Alternate letters from lewd Fifties do
22 OUTRO At Henley, famous for its regattas, to best is to OUT-ROW the competition. Take away the W for the answer. In music, the conclusion is the ending of a composition and may take the form of a coda or OUTRO.
23 Acrostic deliberately omitted
26 LAV LAVENDER (fragrant shrub) minus ENDER (closer) for the loo, the convenience, etc. You may be interested to know that the Chinese euphemism is literally wash hand room
++++++++++++++
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram
yfyap88 at gmail.com = in case anyone wants to contact me in private about some typo

43 comments on “Times 25500 – Good To The Last Drop”

  1. Actually, a flintlock is a gun fired by a spark from a flint, hence ‘piece’.
    1. Um, no, don’t think so Ulaca. The appellation “piece” for firearm well predates flintlocks, and in any event was first applied to ordnance, which would have had a touch hole for hand ignition with a taper.

      The OED entry for “piece,” which goes on for pages and pages, says it comes from medieval French: : “heavy firearm (c1490; 1456 in the phrase piece d’armes)”

      I love etymology!

      1. I note in Collins that ‘flintlock’ is defined as:

        1.an obsolete gunlock in which the charge is ignited by a spark produced by a flint in the hammer
        2.a firearm having such a lock

        and I reckon ‘piece of old’ can refer to either (‘gunlock’ being defined as a firearms mechanism).

        Actually, I don’t quite see where we’re disagreeing. 🙂

        1. it was the word “hence” in your original post, which I took as an assertion that they were called “pieces” because of some fancied connection with flints..
  2. An hour and 25 minutes for this beauty. As with Yap Suk, the fall of Azerbaijan presaged a pangram, which helped with DECK QUOITS, where I couldn’t see beyond ‘tennis’ for a long time. As usual, I didn’t spot the reverse hidden (so couldn’t explain MEEK) and have to thank the blogger too for explaining the first two letters of AScendancy.

    The best tribute I can pay this puzzle is that its trickery caused the solver (me, at any rate) to find trouble even with the simpler clues; thus, 1dn and 4ac were more resistant than multiword clues should be – 15 ac too!

    Last in DIVVY, as I had put ‘loo’ instead of LAV. Another case in point…

  3. I had this as ST (i.e Saint, Mark, for one), INKY (marked with a pen perhaps).

    Edited at 2013-06-13 04:28 am (UTC)

    1. Spot on, Jack. Among so many good clues, the misdirection of ‘Mark for one’ (with the proper name coming first word in the sentence, where the potential help provided by its capitalisation would be neutered)combined with the definition was good enough to make this my joint COD with KNOBSTICK – that’s the way to clue an unknown word!
  4. I somehow knew I was in for trouble when I had to reduce the print scale to 90% to fit the puzzle and clues on one page.

    This took me 68 minutes without ever feeling stuck for a moment as during my thinking time my brain was racing away pursuing so many different possible lines of enquiry and there was no danger of boredom setting in.

    As has already been said, this was a real treat though I’m grateful it didn’t come on my blogging day so that I would have felt under pressure to solve it quickly in order to write it up.

    I made one error discovered during the post-solve review, having originally put STINKS at 3dn. I felt this might have been a deliberate bear-trap designed to catch would-be speed merchants. I think my explanation (posted above) is neater than Uncle Yap’s although his has merit too.

    Edited at 2013-06-13 04:46 am (UTC)

  5. Fantastic puzzle with some really great clues, but in the end too clever for me, and I had three blanks: RUSSIFIED, CADGE and OUTRO, and one wrong: test for TOSS. Sadly spotting it was a pangram couldn’t help with these.

    Thought it was going to be a shoo-in when I got FLOSS straight off, but no way!

    Lots needed further explanation, so many thanks Uncle Yap for those. I got ST + INKY for 3dn, but didn’t really appreciate the clever ‘Mark, for one’ bit of ST.

    COD: JOINT HEIR. Or maybe DIVVY. Or AZERBAIJANI…

  6. 27 minutes, but TEST (no explanation really) for TOSS, one of four I left for consideration once everything else was in. MEEK, STALWART ant STINKY the others, and I didn’t appreciate the full story on STINKY.
    Guessing that it was a pangram (X and J early on) didn’t help that much, especially with AZERBAIJANI, as I imagined the def was Judge, because the need for a J had already gone, and an eastern bazaar can have a Q in its various spellings.
    Not helped either by putting LOO (a bit of light relief?) on the basis that there had to be a fragrant shrub (worse that “plants”, shrubs) that went LOO?
    Taxing stuff requiring much unravelling. My favourite today JOINT HEIR, not because it was particularly tricky but because it wasn’t, and made me smile.
  7. Yes, v. enjoyable. Never noticed the pangram. I agree that some of the shorter clues (eg 3dn, which I think Jack has spot on) are particularly good. Nice to see the traditional dodgy homophone too. Where is Jimbo when you need him 🙂
  8. Back from a few days enjoying the dolce vita (I just adore gelato) this was not easy with its cunning definitions and sometimes convoluted wordplay. 30 minutes of quite hard work.

    The only clue I don’t like is 8D, the rest are all good and I’m glad I didn’t have to blog it. Thank you setter.

    On edit: too relaxed to get worked up about the homo-what-not

    Edited at 2013-06-13 09:04 am (UTC)

  9. A pedant (that’s me) would point out that the Inland Revenue has long ceased to exist and that tax inspectors are now employed by HM Revenue and Customs, but nice clue though
    TonyW
    1. We had IR in another puzzle recently and it was indicated by “old taxmen”, so at least one setter is aware of the IR’s demise.
      1. Make that 2 (see ulaca’s comment above) – I didn’t look at the clue again before replying.
  10. A pleasantly tough puzzle. Held up by putting in knobkerry instead of KNOBSTICK as I didn’t know the latter and couldn’t believe there’d be 2 South African clubs both beginning K_O, even if the wordplay made no sense for knobkerry. Slightly mortified to find that I’ve been mispronouncing STALWART all these years.

    COD to JOINT HEIR, simply because I have a weakness for clues like that.

  11. Thanks for explanation: I’d put in OUTDO (as LOI), just taking Henley to suggest outdoor event, and thinking ‘notes’ were UT and DO, but not seeing where the O came from, or how the clue worked.
    As JACK and QUOITS suggested a pangram, confirmed by 11ac, it was easy to see 12dn
  12. 22m. I can’t agree that there were no gimmes in this: 1dn went straight in, which gave me an X at the beginning of 11ac. I glanced at the enumeration but literally (and probably for the first time ever) put in the answer without looking at the clue.
    Other than that, though, a super puzzle. Lots of tricky stuff, and none of it because of obscurity. Hurrah!
    Thanks for explaining the first two letters of ASCENDANCY. Didn’t have a clue.
  13. A beast of a treat, or a treat of a beast. It took me just over 30 minutes and for a while I did think it was going to defeat me but I live to fight another day.
  14. Can anyone explain 8dn for me? I don’t get it. The tail(enders) might equally be ‘up’ after winning a test, but either ‘toss’ or ‘test’ seems a stretch.
    1. Looking at it again I think you have a point, Anon. I don’t think the clue really works, and TEST doesn’t not work, as it were, any more than TOSS. Perhaps we’re both missing something.
  15. This defeated me in the end. I was left with several gaps and resorted to an aid to get 16 and 17. Even then I got 22 wrong, entering OUTDO like some others. OUTRO is completely new to me. I’ve not even come across it in the Listener, but that’s not surprising as it doesn’t appear in the Listener bible, Chambers.

    A challenging puzzle with lots of tricky definitions and wordplay elements (‘peach’ for ‘rat’ was another new one for me).

    As keriothe has said, there were some gimmes. For me they were 1ac (almost identical answer and definition in a recent Jumbo), 1dn, and therefore, because of the X, 11. 14 and 23 were also easy to spot. The rest was a fair struggle.

    1. Fans of the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band will remember their recording “The Intro and the Outro” which featured many very unlikely guest performers including “… and looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler, on vibes. Nnnice!”

      Edited at 2013-06-13 02:08 pm (UTC)

  16. 29:04 .. difficulty rating: Yikes!

    Is there a new setter on the team? We’ve had a few puzzles like this lately – some easy-ish ones to make you feel confident then one tricky devil after another and a couple of bear traps in the shorter clues.

    I was sore tempted by ‘test’ but resisted – there’s a ‘vintage’ feel to that clue. And I arrived at STINKY the same way as Uncle Yap, though I’m sure jackkt is right about the parsing (which makes it my COD).

  17. No time today because I fell asleep midway through attempting a post-lunch solve after a busy morning.

    I was struggling before I nodded off, but that could have been the tiredness kicking in. After I woke up I was back to what has become my normal solving speed, but I was held up in the NE corner. I wasn’t looking out for a pangram so didn’t realise I was missing a ‘j’, although that’s no excuse for not seeing JACK SPRAT far sooner, and I only got that after finally seeing CADGE, having been fixated on the wrong kind of bums. Titter ye not, I meant tramps and backsides. That finally led to JOINT HEIR, and TOSS was my LOI with a shrug.

  18. Really enjoyable puzzle today. Still don’t quite understand 8dn although did get it right.

    I was a bit thrown by the plural “daughters” in 13dn. Wouldn’t this normally imply more than one D?

  19. Top-notch puzzle, with some devilish misdirection. I particularly liked FOR EXAMPLE, STINKY (I’m with Jack on the parsing of this), JOINT HEIR, ASCENDANCY (though it seems to me that “daughters” should read “daughter’s” to justify only one daughter being visible) and DIVVY. Like Jimbo, I didn’t give much of a toss for TOSS. Either I’m being dumb and missing something (always possible) or this is a feeble clue. But over all, many thanks setter, and well blogged Uncle Yap (and thanks for explaining the first two letters of ASCENDANCY).
  20. The setter writes:
    I had a look at this clue again as it was causing some problems:
    the idea (for what it is worth!) is simply that those calling tails may have their call landing up, thereby winning.
    1. Thanks setter, and please don’t allow quibbles over one clue to detract from the general appreciation of a very fine puzzle!
      I understood this aspect of the clue and it didn’t cause me any problems when solving, but the more I look at it the less I can satisfactorily dismiss TEST as an inherently less valid answer. Probably just me!
      In any event, thank you for the fun.
  21. No time as picked at this feast over a 3 hour train journey whilst chatting to a lovely young comedienne. Really enjoyed this – as noted by others difficulty without obscurity and I always felt I would get here in the end. I guessed MEEK from definition for 14a but can’t see how the rest of it works. Thanks to setter and blogger today.
  22. A DNF because I couldn’t see 8D. Left it blank with the T?S? staring at me. The rest, I agree, was in most places very clever, and JOINT HEIR made me smile too. Thanks to the setter for that, but having seen your kindly offered explanation for TOSS, well, um, let’s just say it’s not quite there for me. But thanks anyway, and regards to all.
  23. There was some good stuff here, but it didn’t help my hangover much. Also didn’t spot the pangram, but loved the clues for FLINTLOCK and JACK SPRAT.
  24. I enjoyed this one immensely. Thank you setter! A pleasurable forty-five minutes.
    FOI Floss, LOI Lobster Pot. One error – I guessed Meet not Meek. Thought X Marks The Spot and Joint Heir were superb.
  25. 19:56 for me. For some reason (OK, probably tiredness) it took me simply ages to find the setter’s wavelength, taking about 15 minutes to solve half the clues. But then I suddenly hit it and the rest went in at a reasonable pace.

    No objection whatsoever to TOSS (though I was tempted by TEST for a while simply because it fitted).

    OUTRO appeared in No. 24,427 (6 Jan. 2010) as the answer to “Part that closes in flower turned yellowy colour (5)”.

    All in all an exceptionally fine puzzle.

  26. Having timed myself for yesterday’s qualifier puzzle (respectable but not brilliant), I foolishly decided to time myself again for today’s puzzle. A fraction over 32 minutes, then found that I had also been precipitate in stuffing ‘outdo’ in at 22d, so the time doesn’t count. Still, some consolation that I wasn’t the only one. I do know ‘outro’, including the versatile Adolf, but it did not occur to me.
    George Clements
  27. I don’t think TEST works, as those who bat, say, 9, 10 and 11 in a cricket side are called ‘tail-enders’ or ‘the tail’. Tails doesn’t work. The tail wags, the tail is up even, but not ‘tails’.
    1. I’ll defer to superior (aka “any”) knowledge when it comes to cricket, but the thing is I don’t think TOSS quite works either, cryptically speaking. Their tails?
        1. The clue “Its winners with their tails up? (4)”
          TOSS is singular, represented by ITS (singular)
          WINNERS (plural to be consistent with the normal ‘heads or tails’) with their call/s of “TAILS”

          I fail to see any defect, especially when the whole clue has that ? at the end as well.

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