Times 25,510 – The Sioux Wars Revisited

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 25 minutes

Quite a potpourri here with a dodgy homophone, a couple of definitions by example (chicken for fowl and fairy for moth), and a reference to a rather London-centric travel device not to mention the first artificial satellite. If you are familiar with the Hebrew alphabet, have a smattering of Spanish and know the other GK references the rest is reasonably straightforward. If not you may have struggled.

Across
1 WINDLASS – a windlass is a hoisting device that winds a rope say around a cylinder; somewhere in the world people must pronounce it to sound like “windless”;
5 ARABLE – (p)ARABLE; the sower is one of those biblical tales with meaning;
9 ARM – (h)ARM;
10 PEARLY,GATES – an Oyster Card is used to travel on London Transport; more religion and a reference to oysters producing pearls – groanworthy;
12 TABLE,D’HOTE – (a bottle he’d)*; the fixed price menu;
13 BOON – BOO-N; opportunity missed to highlight morality based TV series with Michael Elphick;
15 LANDAU – L-AND-A-U; Los Angeles=LA=L and A; U=united; a horse-drawn carriage;
16 LURCHER – LURCH-ER; reference “in the lurch”; ER=King Edward or Queen Elizabeth; Fangs no doubt;
18 SPUTNIK – S(pace)-PUT-NIK(ita); the first artificial Earth satellite launched in 1957; good clue;
20 BEFELL – BE-FELL; hill=FELL:
23 NADA – A-DAN reversed; nothing in Navarre; love=zero=nothing;
24 FINGERBOWL – FOWL surrounds (being + r)*; “r” from r(ather);
26 MOTHER,GOOSE – MOTH-ERGO-OS-E; (longhorn) fairy is a type of MOTH; so=ERGO; very large=OS; energy=E;
27 OAR – O(A)R; A from a(djust);
28 SODIUM – S-ODIUM; a lamp that uses sodium vapour to produce light;
29 UNSTEADY – (tuesday + n=note)*;
 
Down
1 WRAITH – WRA(I)TH;
2 NAMIBIA – NAM-(f or t)IBIA;
3 LIP,READING – L(I-PR)EADING; Sue Thomas FBI;
4 SWASHBUCKLING – S(WASH-BUCK)LING; Errol Flynn;
6 RAGS – R(iches)-A(s)-G(enerally)-S(aid);
7 BETROTH – BET(ROT)H; second letter of Hebrew alphabet=BETH;
8 ELSINORE – E-L(SIN)ORE; reference Hamlet;
11 LITTLE,BIGHORN – (thrilling to be)*; spot where General Custer was defeated by Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, et al. Today is the anniversary of the battle that took place on 25th June 1876;
14 PREFERMENT – PRE-FERMENT; trouble=FERMENT so pre-ferment is before the trouble;
17 TSUNAMIS – T(S)UNA-MIS(s); S from S(eaweed);
19 UNDATED – (in)UNDATED;
21 LEONORA – (a loner + o)*; of Castile no doubt;
22 FLURRY – F(L)URRY;
25 PERU – PE-RU;

29 comments on “Times 25,510 – The Sioux Wars Revisited”

  1. Enjoyed this puzzle more than yesterday’s sprint (finished in 40mins or so), despite getting one wrong (had windless for the unknown hoist).

    As Jim says, lots of variety here, with a couple of Shakespeare refs, some geography, some foreign terms etc, but nothing too obscure (except maybe 1ac). Definitely more satisfying than yesterday’s.

  2. Jimbo, I’m pretty sure “windlass” and “windless” are homophones where I come from (Australia), but I’d have to admit that the former doesn’t often arise in conversation.
    1. You’re right and Jimbo’s wrong. All the dictionaries agree that it’s:
      |ˈwindləs|
  3. 15 minutes. The windy homophone didn’t really work for me, though I concede it’s possible I have been pronouncing it wrong mentally (never needed to say it out loud) with a strong a sound.
    Even for those of us who know what an Oyster card is 10 looked pretty dodgy. Pearly Gates will always be for me Peter Sellers in The Wrong Arm of the Law.
    I hesitated over LITTLE BIGHORN because the numeration looked wrong – today’s bit of learning. PREFERMENT went in on definition with a shrug but I now think it’s quite cute – thanks Jim! Likewise MOTHER GOOSE where I was thinking “I didn’t know Mother Goose was a fairy” and forgot to parse properly.
    SPUTNIK the best of the bunch as a nearly &lit.

    Edited at 2013-06-25 08:30 am (UTC)

      1. I think the necessary (well, half) at the end takes it just out of the &lit zone, but then I’ve never been quite sure what counts. I was being cautious, not wishing to invite the advice that it’s not really an &lit!
        1. I see your point: the last two words rather mangle the surface. On the other hand if it’s not an &lit it doesn’t have a definition!
    2. Sorry, I didn’t see your comment about PS in The Wrong Arm of the Law. But I’m glad I’m not the only one who remembers it.
  4. Moth is a fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

    35 minutes with 10 of them lost at the 19dn/23ac intersection. I’d never have thought of ‘open’ = ‘undated’ without having the answer and working backwards and I’m still not sure I get it*. Never heard of NADA and there are at least 8 or 9 possibilities for a 3-letter ‘boy’ ending in N so it took me a while to decide on the most likely option.

    *When solving I thought of ‘open cheque’ but now I realise that’s something other than ‘undated’. The only justification I can find is in Collins where an ‘open ticket’ doesn’t specify the date of return travel, but I’d guess it’d still be stamped with the date of issue!

    Edited at 2013-06-25 08:10 am (UTC)

  5. A Jack/Janie cross for me, 35 minutes with a careless ‘windless’, which I should have got regardless of how I would pronounce it if I ever did. Thought PREFERMENT was a bit of a stretch.
    1. If George Michael had been a sailor rather than saying “hello” to them that might have been a hit record.
  6. A nice challenge (I thought), but held up by 3 in the SW corner; 19d, 23a, and esp 17d, where I was sure that TUNA was part of the answer (maybe dredged up from crossword deep memory store) but the ‘M’ made me doubt my instinct for too long. At 12ac, glad to remember from previous outings that (1,4) can be clued as (5) if it’s actually (1’4). Also, very close to putting the wrong second vowel in at 1ac. Corrected in the nick of time.

    Andrew R

  7. Enjoyed this, mostly for the GK. My only beef is with NAM for ‘Vietnam’ at 2dn. Not a very nice saying these days. And I don’t understand the blog on this matter.
  8. 17:03 on the club timer. I enjoyed this: a mix of references and some nice clues.
    Thanks for explaining PREFERMENT, which I didn’t understand.
    12ac took forever to see because of the apostrophe: for a while it looked like an impossible anagram. I think the convention of missing out apostrophes is the right way to do it: the alternative would remove a perfectly reasonable weapon from setter’s armoury and make clues like this too easy.
  9. Two hours with this one and struggled with almost everything. As you say Jimbo 10ac is indeed groanworthy. I guessed Pearly Gates from the first part of the clue and hoped for the best.
    Does anyone else remember the brilliant Peter Sellers in the role in The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963)?
  10. 17 mins post-lunch.

    I enjoyed this one and thought some of the wordplay was quite clever. FURRY made me smile as I entered it. My last four in were the NADA/UNDATED and WRAITH/WINDLASS crossers. I wondered about the windlass/windless homophone but my Chambers shows what mctext pointed out, so I’m another one who has been mentally mispronouncing windlass all these years. PREFERMENT went in with a shrug, but now that I’ve seen Jimbo’s explanation I’m kicking myself.


  11. I got so caught up trying to decide if it was UNDATED or UPDATED (before the penny dropped with the clock on 29:40) that I didn’t check the rest. I’m red-faced, having sailed since childhood, at having ‘windless’ (a definite homophone for me).
  12. 13.23 with, as others have said, quite a few groans along the way, including ‘that’ homophone.
  13. A steady 35-minute solve, but 1ac wrong, with WINDLESS carelessly entered. I don’t think there’s anything seriously amiss with the homophone. The ‘a’ is phonetically schwa, as is the ‘e’ of ‘windless’ for most speakers.
    I thought it was a good puzzle with some clueing that was not run-of-the-mill.
  14. 14:15 with Mother Goose, lip-reading and preferment not fully understood.

    I liked the subtraction element of 19 so I’ll make that my COD but I enjoyed landau too.

    I don’t think I’ve come across a real-life Leonora since Leonora Goodwin in primary school some 40+ years ago.

  15. Around 30 mins. Not a hugely challenging puzzle, but more difficult than yesterday’s, with some clever and amusing clues, among which FINGERBOWL, PREFERMENT, PEARLY GATES and UNDATED stood out for me. No quibbles from this quarter. The GK and literary allusions were surely well within the knowledge range that might reasonably be expected of Times xword solvers, and the windless/WINDLASS homophone seemed to me close enough in any normal speech for cryptic purposes.
  18. 9:10 here for a most enjoyable solve.

    Like others I’d always imagined that WINDLASS and “windless” were pronounced differently. I’ve probably never said the former out loud, and perhaps never even heard it said correctly.

    I came alarmingly close to another disaster, having typed SWASHBUSKLING and then failed to spot that it wasn’t actually the word I had in mind. Fortunately I decided to check the wordplay, but even then I took ages trying to think how on earth “money” could lead to BUSK.

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