Times 25511: Purely academic

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 55:02

So, for me at least, a hard slog. Almost came to grief in the SE corner with four answers missing after 40-ish minutes. And still have one parsing to work through. Might need some help with that one.

Across

1 STEEL BLUE. It’s an anagram of ‘see bullet’.
6 BOWLS. Two literals.
9 OLDEN. Included reversed in ‘spurNED LOver’. Def = ‘past’.
10 PICTORIAL. Sounds like ‘picked Oriel’.
11 DWELL ON. WELL inside DON.
12 TRYPSIN. PS (additional notes) inside TRYIN’. Never heard of it, despite my passing knowledge of the pancreas and its functions.
13 WITH A GOOD GRACE. Two defs, the first (‘monastery meals should begin so’) more cryptic than the second. (And, to be even more cryptic, I will be at about 4:00pm this afternoon.)
17 VICE CHANCELLOR. A cryptic definition. They now call themselves Presidents or CEOs because the overseas ‘market’ apparently doesn’t understand why they can’t speak to the head honcho.
21 PRETEEN. PEN (writer) inc RETE (network of vessels in the body). And no, I didn’t know that either.
23 TUMBREL. Reverse the last bit of ‘tumbLER’.
25 REMAINDER. REINDE{e}R inc MA.
26 TRUCE. Reverse CURT + {endors}E.
27 TANS,Y.
28 GOLD,CREST. ‘Lightweight’ because it’s very small.

Down

1 SHOWDOWN. This is the one I don’t quite get. Suspect it has to be ’OW D{o} inside SHOWN (broadcast). As for the statesman … ?? On edit: looks like Ulaca has it. See first comment.
2 ENDUE. Take the {wate}R out of ENDURE (brook, put up with).
3 LEND-LEASE. Anagram: ‘allies need’, minus 1.
4 LEPANTO. This is LET O{n}, inc PAN.
5 EXCITED. C (Conservative) inside EXITED (went).
6 BOOZY. OZ (ounce) inside BOY.
7 WHIMSICAL. WHI{p} + M{u}SICAL.
8 SILENT. I{nfants} + L inside SENT.
14 TRIBESMAN. M (maiden) deleted from TRI{m}; BES{t} MAN.
15 RHEUMATIC. Sounds like ‘room, attic’.
16 DROLLEST. Reverse LORD; LEST (in case).
18 HANG,DOG.
19 NATURAL. RU (reversed) inside NATAL.
20 SPIRIT. RI (scripture) inside TIPS (reversed).
22 EDIFY. IDE{a} reversed; F{or} Y{outh}.
24 ROUGE. Move the G (downwards) in ROGUE.

33 comments on “Times 25511: Purely academic”

  1. Definitely “howdy” I thought. A real struggle for me. Thought a few of the definitions iffy.
      1. Just another word I’ve been misspelling in my internal lexicon all these years. I note for future reference that ‘howdy/howdie’ is also a midwife.
      2. I rather thought while solving it was a more English How do? but of course that doesn’t really account for the Statesman. Would have worked just as well, though.
  3. 78 minutes after a rip-roaring start. Lots to like here, a fun challenge where the unknowns/unfamiliars such as TANSY, TRYPSIN and LEPANTO were easier to get than some of the better known literals such as TUMBREL, BOWLS and REMAINDER.

    Like McT, my main hold-ups were in the SE, where I did myself no favours by hazarding first ‘goldfinch’ and then ‘goldstart’ for the bird.

    Today I learn that the stuff you find all over the place in England which I’ve always called dill is in fact tansy. After recent carelessness I award myself a house-point for thinking before entering ‘tumbril’. COD to SILENT for all the inappropriate images it gave rise to during parsing.

  4. 70 minutes of torture here as I struggled with almost every clue in turn to find the answers, following on from several minutes of wondering if I would ever get started.

    My list of unknowns/forgottens has already been covered: LEPANTO, RETE, TRYPSIN, TANSY. I’d also forgotten who Dionysus was and might have been much quicker to solve 6dn if the first word had been “Bacchanalian” the Roman equivalent.

    Absolutely staggered to see a genuine solver in the Club completed this in 9m, 28s! I assume the sub-5m leader is a cheat.

    Edited at 2013-06-26 05:34 am (UTC)

  5. I also found this difficult and struggled rather for 35 minutes – was pleased to finish it really

    Kicked myself for forgetting RETE which I’m sure I’ve parsed in a bar crossword at some time and couldn’t figure out how SHOWDOWN worked, so thanks ulaca.

    Looking back on it I can’t see anything too difficult – a sign of a good puzzle. Thank you setter.

  6. Thanks, mctext. I came to grief with a number of unknowns e.g. TRYPSIN, TANSY so came here for rescue. My compliments on sorting it all out.
  7. Too many unknown or half-known words for this to be enjoyable for me, e.g. STEEL BLUE, TRYPSIN, WITH A GOOD GRACE, RETE, TUMBREL, TANSY, and that’s before even looking at the downs.
  8. 30 mins mid-morning, although it was a technical DNF under competition conditions because I initially entered TUMBRIL without thinking about the wordplay too much. When I went to Chambers to check it post-solve I saw that it could be spelled both ways, thought about it again, finally saw the tumbler/tumbrel wordplay, so I changed my answer.

    I never felt that I was on the setter’s wavelength and I found it really hard to get going. After 20 mins I still had huge gaps everywhere, but then I got on a roll and the rest of it fell into place. I trusted the wordplay on TRYPSIN because I had certainly never heard of it. I’m with Jimbo on having forgotten “rete” so PRETEEN took longer than it should. THE NW was the last corner I completed and BOOZY was my LOI. A few years ago I wouldn’t have got close to solving this one.

  9. Glad everyone else found this difficult. No idea how long it took me – but it was long. Thanks to Ulaca for explaining “statesman” at 1 ac. Unlike him I did carelessly enter TUMBRIL at 23 ac, so no house-point for me. Good puzzle. At times doing it I felt inclined to quibble but on reflection there was nothing really unfair, obscurities (e.g. TRYPSIN) being accessible via the wordplay.
  10. 22m for a puzzle that felt a lot harder than that.
    As Jimbo says, this was one where the clues looked easier in retrospect, which is the sign of a good puzzle. There were also lots of unknowns and half-knowns which were all gettable from wordplay, which also makes for a very good puzzle in my book. In short, an excellent puzzle much enjoyed.
    I’m going to go one better than ulaca and award myself TWO house points for paying attention to the wordplay and avoiding both TUMBRIL and LAPANTO. I did remember the battle this time, which just goes to show: if you fail to solve a clue because you don’t know something, have a good whinge about it and you might remember it next time.
    Edit: it occurs to me that, since it last came up here, I have actually been to Venice and seen Veronese’s painting of the Battle of Lepanto. This may have contributed to my remembering it!

    Edited at 2013-06-26 10:47 am (UTC)

  11. 20 minutes less a couple of breaths for this one, so on reading the remarks here feeling quite chuffed. There were some neat devices here, the switched ending for TUMBREL felt the most original.
    Interesting how the answers to the unknowns or barely knowns it this one “felt” right: TRYPSIN for me the outstanding example, as I don’t think I’ve come across it before. The wordplay gave it but it also felt right.
    TANSY similarly, though the PANSY also suggested itself with almost equal vigour.
    Many candidates for CoD today, but LEND-LEASE shades it for me for surface.
    1. Unfortunately it didn’t feel right for me. I went down the musical notes route (As) on the basis that tryasin sounded enough like all those things you find in Rice Krispies to be a real substance.

      On reflection tryasin now looks more like something a lady of the night might shout.

  12. Excellent puzzle. Unfortunately I’m back to my careless ways, this time with an anagram that wasn’t: LAND LEASE. Still, I enjoyed myself.

    I’m going to have to get LEPANTO tattooed somewhere as I always forget it, this time included.

    1. Me too – one of the disadvantages of solving online is that it’s SUCH an effort to dig out a pencil and paper for some anagramming.
      1. It is a dreadful chore. I usually open a text box window to use for scribbles and anagrams, but this was such an ‘easy’ anagram I didn’t bother.
  13. A postscript: I unwisely Googled the (to me, unknown) plant at 7d in last Saturday’s Jumbo, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at the eyefuls that presented themselves. If GCHQ really is watching, it’s probably even more unwise to Google today’s 21ac unless you want to be on their special list!
  14. A proper beast – 19.59.56 on my phone’s stop watch, which is just about sub 20 minutes!! The RETE part of PRETEEN was a guess. As to Vice-Chancellors, they still call them that round here, although ours is definitely not a him!
  15. 29:47 but with 2 errors – tryasin (see above) and tumbril which I threw in on a vague recollection of it being a carty-sounding word but without seeing how the clue worked. Tumbril/tumbrel, windless/windlass, let’s call the whole thing off.
  16. Took the best part of this morning, dipping in and out, but I was sure that it was a puzzle I could conquer, and I did! Finishing with the unknown LEPANTO, and then the penny-dropping homophone of PICTORIAL.

    Hadn’t worked out all the cryptics, but was so pleased to finish all correct, no aids!

  17. Good clue. The FDR library is about 12 miles South of us – I bet NY Kevin knows it well and it’s well worth the visit. I always send our UK visitors there when I want the afternoon to myself and no one’s complained yet. 27 minutes after a prolonged wrestle with preteen/edify. I thought it was “pre-teen” so didn’t believe it. Haven’t got around to the w/e cryptic jumbo yet but now I’m curious to see what Zabadak is talking about in 7d.
    1. Olivia, quite right, it’s a few miles north of me, and the FDR home is actually much more interesting than the library, unless you’re researching something. I wonder if your visitors remark on the rather shameless exploitation of the locals, what with a movie theater and a motel carrying the FDR name, and his image prominently displayed by the brewery, as though he is endorsing their product.
  18. I was between 45 and 50 minutes, so I thought this fairly tough, but as already said, a good puzzle. My particular holdup was the SW area, especially SPIRIT (LOI), PRETEEN and EDIFY. I’d never heard of the GOLDCREST, though I am fairly familiar with birds, so I learned something today; thank you setter. COD to RHEUMATIC, which caused a smile. Regards to all.
  19. This took me most of lunch to finish and I thought there were some excellent clues, nice challenge. I needed the wordplay for a lot of them which meant I missed some possible traps – needed wordplay for LEND-LEASE, LEPANTO, TANSY and TUMBREL. SHOWDOWN from definition alone.
  21. I really enjoyed this one. It is a genuine satisfaction to complete such a puzzle correctly and without using references. As usual, I didn’t time myself, but I think my time was comfortably within an hour, with which I am quite happy.
    Like others, I believe it’s a good puzzle when I manage to complete it having initially feared it would be beyond me, and if I can learn something along the way (such as trypsin).
    I also feel that it is an advantage to me that I attempt the puzzles in the printed newspaper rather than on screen as I am sure that I should make more errors: I too thought of tumbril first but trying it out in the margin before entry helped to avoid a slip-up.
    I am also grateful for the parsing of 1d, which eluded me.
    Thanks to the setter and all contributors.
    George Clements
  22. Very much a game of two halves, with the upper and lower parts almost completely disjunct. Top done fairly quickly, with no problems bar 1d (thanks, ulaca!) but after another half-hour or so looking at an almost blank bottom, decided to save and watch TV for a while. (I did have 17, but it seemed too easy, so was reluctant to put it in till I had several checkers.
    On return, I did manage to finish without having to come here for assistance, but having submitted without the board, I don’t know whether it was OK – solving time about 1 1/2 hours, LOI 22d.
  23. Totally screwed by bunging in editorial at 10 across, should have known Lepanto

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