Times 25509 – Comparisons are….

Solving time: 29 minutes
Music: Eric Clapton, Unplugged

This should be pretty easy for most solvers, unless there is something crucial that you just don’t know. Fortunately, the definitions and the cryptics are pretty straightforward, so if one doesn’t work for you the other is likely to.

After completing the blog, I must say this is a very easy puzzle indeed. I am sure we will have some very fast times. If you have any time left over, please join in the hunt for the unclosed html tag that is creating white space in the blog – I spent 20 minutes looking and can’t find it.

Across
1 OVERSHOT, OVERS + HOT. Our cricket bit for the day, easy enough even for US solvers.
6 REAGAN, RE(A)GAN. One of my last in, as I thought ‘dramatic’ was the literal.
9 MAGNETIC NORTH, double definition, one jocular – and not historically accurate, either. Lord North was far from charismatic, although to be fair nobody was going to be popular pushing George III’s policies.
10 ROSTRA, double definition. I didn’t quite get the second one, but there is really only one word that fits. You could look it up: the ‘beaks’ refer to rams mounted on the prows of ships.
11 INFESTED, IN + FE(ST)ED.
12 PENICILLIN, PEN + ICIL + NIL backwards. I really don’t quite where ICIL comes from, since ‘current’ is only ‘I’. Audience participation invited. Jack has come up with the solution, it is PEN(I)CIL + NIL backwards, of course.
15 OMEN, [w]OMEN. The literal is a little loose, a bit of definition by example. The writing on the wall may be an omen, but so are many other things.
16 AVID, [d]AVID.
18 COQUETTISH, anagram of CHIT QUOTES.
21 BUDD[-h](+LEI)A. A overly-clever substitution clue – fortunately, I knew the bush.
22 BANANA, BA(NAN)A.
23 TREASURE TROVE, TREASURE + anagram of VOTER.
24 ODIOUS, double definition, the second one a literary allusion to Bottom’s famous malapropism, the sort of clue you seldom see nowadays.
26 LONESOME, L(ONE’S O[rder of]M[erit])E.
 
Down
2 VAMOOSE, V[ide] A MOOSE, originally from the Spanish ‘vamos’. It works much better with the moose.
3 RIGHT MINDED, double definition.
4 HYENA, either a cryptic definition or a double, depending on how you look at it.
5 TRIVIAL, TRI(V[erse]I)AL. A mundane clue, too.
6 RING FENCE, double definition.
7 AYR, sounds like AIR.
8 ATHLETE, anagram of HAT + LE([ki]T)E.
12 SPONTANEOUS, anagram of PASS ON NOTE around U.
14 INCREASES, double definition.
17 VAULTED, double definition.
19 QUARREL, double definition. Notice a pattern yet?
20 SUNBEAM, SU[-ri]N(+BE)AM.
22 BATON, BAT + ON.
24 EGO, E.G. + O[ne].

51 comments on “Times 25509 – Comparisons are….”

  1. 12:14 .. very easy but lots of fun. I smiled at quite a few clues. “Becomes more crumpled” is a hoot.

    vinyl – I think you’ve got your <table tag in a strange place – before your intro. Move it down to just above the first table row and maybe that’ll sort things out.

    1. since beng updated, now seems to take every c/r literally. I use much the same HTML template and get all sorts of extra bits of line spacing. (Usually between the intro and the blog and between the Across and Down bits of the table.) Only solution is to go to the Visual Editor and delete manually from there. However, if you then edit the blog, the extra line spaces return.
  2. Many chucked in from the literals. LOI was the beaks which I also didn’t know in that sense. Now I see it’s from rodere (to gnaw). Interesting?

    Now for “The One After 9:09”?

  3. 15ac: I suspect this is OK for OMEN. The allusion is to Daniel 5:5 and now (as per “Waterloo” for “demise”, etc.) is generally used to mean any sign of something unpleasant about to happen. Buffy Sainte Marie uses it in Universal Soldier, for example.
  4. Spent time pursuing several false leads: 2d LO instead of V, 6ac thought only of Ida, 15ac tried to use ‘mene’ (part of the original writing on the wall) for a while, 22ac read it as ‘animal…’ and thought of pig, which gives ‘pinang’, one of your less known fruits. Didn’t understand either ROSTRA or QUARREL, but didn’t have to worry about either. I wouldn’t equate ‘trivial’ with ‘mundane’; mundane concerns like finding work and getting enough to eat each day are hardly trivial, and worrying about the type face on this blog is trivial but I hope not mundane. (No, I don’t.on edit: don’t worry about the type face, that is.)

    Edited at 2013-06-24 02:03 am (UTC)

  5. 20 minutes – only unknown ‘rostrum’ as the snout-like projection on an insect, etc., which incidentally I think the setter means to refer to, although rostrum as ‘platform’ is derived from that part of the Forum in Rome which was adorned with the ‘beaks’ of captured enemy ships.

    I took 9a to have a single literal (‘that is regularly point at’), with the first part of the clue comprising the wordplay.

    Edited at 2013-06-24 12:53 am (UTC)

  6. The writer is PENCIL.

    On the spacing, as mct says. There are about 40 x < br > after “I can’t find it” before you get to < table cellspacing=”3″ > at the start of the table. If you delete all these it will come right.

    Edited at 2013-06-24 01:29 am (UTC)

    1. Same problem … but yours is a much better solution. Will have a look at that on Wed. when I cover for Jerry.
  7. 21 minutes which is about as good as I have ever got but I would have achieved sub-20 if I had not spent so long considering AIR or AYR at 7dn. Didn’t know the second meaning of ROSTRA or the “Dream” reference. REAGAN was my last one in too.
    1. I didn’t spend long enough considering, and put AIR. I hate clues of that type.

      I did spent some time on 15ac having missed the obvious and wondering if an (c)OVEN was somehow “writing on the wall”!

      Otherwise an easy 12 mins.

      Edited at 2013-06-24 01:47 am (UTC)

    2. It’s hard for some of us to think of him as a president. (Gore Vidal always referred to him as the Acting President.)

      Edited at 2013-06-24 03:39 am (UTC)


  8. My fastest ever by far, with all bar one finished in 13 mins, and another 4 or 5 mins to have a guess at ROSTRA. Didn’t know the second def of QUARREL, and hadn’t completely worked out PENICILLIN (ie had PEN rather than PENCIL as the writer), but what else could it be? Good, fun puzzle, but, at the risk of sounding churlish, I think, on balance, I find it more satisfying when I take between 30mins and an hour to finish a puzzle. More of a sense of achievement, I guess.
  9. Congratulations, Janie and Andrew! It wasn’t that long ago that I could only dream of an under-30′ time, and they’re still by no means assured. I think you’ll find that you’re getting faster not because the puzzles are less challenging, but because you’re understanding faster; in which case I suspect you won’t miss the slower times.
  10. Fastest time ever, first under 20min. Only real struggle was the shrub. Last few minutes spent checking everything was right. Fun puzzle, but agree with Janie that the feeling of having climbed a stubborn mountain before breakfast is rather more satisfying than having conquered a gentle hillock. Provides encouragement, though, to us slower solvers that faster times are indeed possible, so no complaints.

    Andrew R

  11. 8m. This is rather light fare, and I wasn’t a great fan of some of it. The fact that we don’t see quotation clues like 25ac much these days is entirely welcome as far as I’m concerned, and I’m not generally a huge fan of clues like those for ROSTRA or QUARREL which rely on obscure meanings and not much else.
    My last in was BUDDLEIA, and I came to it with a sense of foreboding. Fortunately I thought of “lei” quite quickly, and then much to my surprise found that the answer was a shrub I have actually heard of. I’ve no idea what they look like, mind.
    The phrase RIGHT-MINDED means “in possession of conventional opinions with which I agree”. Not to be confused with bien pensant, which means “in possession of conventional opinions with which I disagree”.

    Edited at 2013-06-24 08:07 am (UTC)

    1. How can you trust a nation which still insists that umpires get down from their highchair and make a judgement on where exactly a ball travelling at a hundred miles an hour 15 yards away landed rather than use the latest technology which everyone else uses? (Or is the answer in the last four words?)
      1. I can’t disagree, although I’m not sure I’ve ever actually heard the phrase “bien pensant” in France. I just did a search for it on the Times website, and six of the first eleven results are articles by Rod Liddle. That tells you what it means better than any dictionary!
      2. “…rather than use the latest technology which everyone else uses” and which is actually installed in the stadium for the benefit of TV viewers around the world!
  12. 10 mins mid-morning and it would have been a sub-10 but for ROSTRA, for which I didn’t know the beak meaning, and I had to go through the alphabet until I got to ‘r’ before I thought of the plural of rostrum for the other element of the clue. I also didn’t know the quote element of ODIOUS but the answer was obvious enough from ‘hateful’.
  13. Took longer to get into LJ this morning than to complete the crossword, 7’30” for the latter, I think a pb in recent times. Mind you, that’s doing the crossword with pen on paper and measured by an analogue watch, so the 30″ is an approximation. Fun, but as Janie says perhaps over too fast, the challenge being not so much in untangling the clues as getting there quickly – a kind of fever takes over as the solving bit of the brain works almost in isolation. Now if only I could harness that for competition purposes.
    I did appreciate some clues while flying by: MAGNETIC NORTH for its complete disregard of history, SUNBEAM for its neat use of the unlikely fodder Surinam, and INCREASES for its evocation of Christmas cracker humour and hence ten bob notes. Happy to know both ROSTRA and the shrub. I think I have some of the latter in my personal jungle – it attracts butterflies if there are any.
    1. Over a bit too quickly, and I was put in mind of the Guardian’s usual straightforward Monday fare. Didn’t know the reference in 25A, despite studying the play at O-Level. ROSTRA was familiar from the rostral column in St Petersburg. QUARREL was familiar from teenage games of Dungeons and Dragons.

      (Oops – that wasn’t supposed to be a reply)

      Edited at 2013-06-24 09:48 am (UTC)

    2. Poor Magoo must have no fun at all solving crosswords. 10 minutes is a foreign country to him. This one took him 4:08. You have to feel sorry for him and his few close rivals .. (teeth firmly gritted).
  14. 8 mins on the button; very enjoyable solve.
    ps I thought Saturday’s puzzle (22 Jun) was absolutely superb.
  15. 17 minutes, thus very easy, as I don’t often drop below 20. Still, not without some pleasant elements, such as 14 and 21. I didn’t know the first meaning of 10, but I’ve got no objection to some obscurity when the other definition is clear and there are few options to fill the unchecked letters.
  16. 8.13 – held up by the beaks and whether 7d should have an I or a Y – luckily I plumped for the second, correct, option. Trickier than most Mondays, or was that just me?
  17. An unusually easy puzzle, as all have said, but with some amusing clues. “Becomes more crumpled” for INCREASES was a corker. 22 mins for me. How does Magoo do it? I could barely write in the solutions in 4:08 even if I knew them in advance.

    I agree that Saturday’s puzzle was top-notch.

  18. 10 minutes, enjoyable Monday fare if over all too soon, but time to go back to Saturday’s in which I am struggling to sort out the west side.

    Edited at 2013-06-24 12:32 pm (UTC)

  19. This is the first puzzle I’ve ever completed as I am always stumped by some obscure reference, so I am happy to have finished it in about an hour. I think the ROSTRA clue was referring to the teachers at traditional schools, known as ‘beaks’, and the platform at the front of the class with the teacher’s desk on it, called the ‘rostrum’.

    Jane

  20. No time, but a pretty easy puzzle. I didn’t know the shrub or why ‘beaks’ in the ROSTRA clue, but no real problems in either case. Regards to all.
  21. 6:22 for me, starting slowly and never really hitting my stride with such an easy puzzle. I enjoyed 25ac (ODIOUS), a nice old-fashioned Times clue.
  22. Where in the world are there people who DON’T pronounce it to sound like “windless”?
  23. I object most strongly to this clue. It is totally ambiguous and either answer “AYR” or “AIR” is perfectly defensible.
    This is clearly a case of the compiler deliberately setting an unfair clue in order to give solvers only a 50% chance of a perfect solution.
    1. I suspect few experienced solvers would agree with you. I for one had no doubt about the correct solution.
  24. 7D broadcast is air . Scottish port that sounds like air is Ayr. Only one answer in my book. I still can’t see how 4D is hyena. It’s obviously laughing maniaclally but it’s also very close to ananagram of ‘he may’
    1. Hyenas often (always?) have spots. Not always, google quickly tells me there are spotted hyenas and striped hyenas.
      Rob

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