Times 25,516

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
11:57. Pleasant everyday not-too-difficult puzzle, without anything I can see that might prove really obscure. Unless you know differently…

Across
1 GALLOPING – OPus in GALLING.
9 LYRICAL – (ALLICYRiver)*.
10 RIGHT ON – BRIGHTON minus the Bishop.
11 VISIT – VI(=6) + SIT(=model).
12 HOT POTATO – (PHOTO)*,(ATOT)*.
13 RELAPSE – (HE’S PALER)rev. minus Hospital.
15 STING – STRING minus the Run.
17 CLONE – Liberal in CONservative, responsiblE. A topical surface which might be seen as dragging up unfortunate recent history in some corners of Fleet Street. I was more immediately familiar with the term being applied to credit cards (it’s what happens when unscrupulous people copy your card details by various underhand means) but the same sort of process can be applied to mobiles.
18 SURLY – SURELY minus the Ecstasy.
19 PUNCH – double def.
20 INFERNO – INFER(=reason), londoN, Over.
23 RED GROUSE – RED(=apparently angry), GROUSE(=complaint). The tasty sort of game.
25 CHEAP – HE in CAP.
27 TRAILER – double def.
28 DICTION – VICTIM, minus V(=5),M(=million) in DON(=put on).
29 ENDLESSLY – END(=finish),LES(=chap),SLY(=crafty).
 
Down
1 GURKHA – (RUG)rev. + KHAki.
2 LIGHTPROOF – LIGHT(=far from strong),PROOF(=evidence).
3 OUTHOUSE – THOU(=you, once) in OUSE.
4 IONIA – regION I Associate.
5 GLAMORGAN – GLAM(=alluring),ORGAN(=regal). I must confess to my ignorance of the regal organ, but the clue hardly allowed for anything else.
6 TRAVEL – Theme + (Maurice) RAVEL.
7 ACTS – PACTS.
8 FLATTERY – LATTE(=coffee) in FRY(=cook full English breakfast). Something at the back of my mind tells me there has been previous discussion here about whether latte is a milky drink which happens to contain a dash of coffee, rather than a coffee drink with a lot of milk in it. There again, it may just have been my interior monologue. And in any case, it’s clearly a beverage you might find prominently on the menu in a modern coffee shop, and thus entitled to be called “coffee”.
14 PORTCULLIS – PORT(=left), CU(=copper), (SILL)rev. “Keep closer” is a great definition.
16 IMPORTUNE – (MOREINPUT)*.
17 COINCIDE – COIN(=mint) CIDER.
18 SHORTAGE – SHORT(=whisky, perhaps) + AGE.
21 REPAIR – REPertory, AIR(=broadcast).
22 BETRAY – E.T. in BRAY. If there’s a film which needs to be squeezed into the middle of quite a short word, it’s usually E.T. these days.
24 DATED – triple def. though it took me a long while to realise that the “saw” bit was exactly the same as the “walked out with”, broken up by the “old”.
26 EACH – BEACH(=all).

34 comments on “Times 25,516”

  1. Among the very easy clues, such as the single-letter deletions at 7dn and 26dn, I had a few difficulties. For example, my last pair: 1ac and 1dn. And while 14dn (PORTCULLIS) is a great clue, it kept me guessing for a while. As did the rather vague literal (“construction”) for OUTHOUSE. And “cook full English breakfast” for FRY seemed a bit loose given (a) the variety of meals that can be fried and (b) the possibility of poached eggs and grilled tomatoes etc., in a genuine FEB.

    Slight suggestion for the blog Tim: at 12ac we have two separate anagrams (“photo” and “a tot”) with two separate indicators (“snapped” and “playing”).

  2. 33 minutes with PORTCULLIS as the stand-out clue and I even knew the portable organ. I think I’ve seen Brighton with its B missing very recently but possibly not in the Times.

    Edited at 2013-07-02 01:26 am (UTC)

  3. 34 minutes…and no dogs, so I was happy, despite not knowing CLONE in the required sense. PORTCULLIS was very good, but I’m not that keen on ‘most of’ used to chop off an indeterminate number of letters.
  4. 28.51 on the timer for me, and one of my quickest.

    Didn’t know the regal organ, but as Tim says, what else could it be? Didn’t really get the CLONE = hacked phone bit, but again, it had to be that.

    LOI: GURKHA; COD: COINCIDE

  5. The most annoying successful solve I’ve ever done: spent the last 10 minutes agonizing over CLONE and FLATTERY–or rather their clues–couldn’t justify either to myself but decided to throw them in. Which I did, 5 seconds after 30′. Now I just know that I’m going to do the rest of the week’s puzzles in under a half-hour (not that that’s ever happened before), and fail to qualify for Tony’s leaderboard.
  6. 10m. Another straightforward one, and no chuntering today. Lots bunged in from definition and worked out post-solve.I didn’t know (or had forgotten) “regal” but as others have said, it couldn’t really be anything else. For a couple of minutes at the end I thought 1dn was going to defeat me, but then I saw it. I share ulaca’s view of the removal device.
    In case Don’s reading, I should point out that I did this at 5am without the benefit of caffeine. Adjusted for these conditions my time was 8m23s.
    1. I’ve been wondering if, just as Top Gear put a ‘W’ after a lap time to indicate wet weather, we should have a system of abbreviations for indicating adverse solving conditions..

      SC – sans caffeine
      I – Interrupted
      SW – eating sandwich
      SW(M) as above, but with mayonnaise involvement
      PUB – in one
      etc

  7. Interesting middle-of-the-road 20 minute puzzle with one superb definition (keep closer) and one dubious reference.

    I can see an argument for YRF in a down clue being “cook full EB” but not FRY. The clue works reasonably well if the phrase “full EB” is simply removed!

    Other than that had vague memories of the organ and like others didn’t understand CLONE=hacked phone but that presented no problem in an easy clue

  8. 17 minutes, so I suppose bang on an average sort of crossword, none the less a pleasant journey. I thought we had mostly neat, economical clues today and particularly liked SHORTAGE.
    “Walk out with old saw” apart from conjuring a slightly odd surface picture was a cute trap for the seasoned solver – we see “saw” and immediately open up the mental thesaurus of mottoes and proverbs.
    In the midst of all the economy, “Cook full English breakfast” certainly looks verbose for FRY, and I agree with Jim that YRF was tempting, more so if the “Cook” had been missing. But “Cook without coffee and sugar”, while acceptable as a clue, looks odd and I quite liked this oasis of verbosity.
  9. 12 mins mid-morning.

    I thought there were some good clue constructions today, such as those for PORTCULLIS, SHORTAGE, and FLATTERY. I had never seen LIGHTPROOF as a single word before so I checked it afterwards and it is hyphenated in my Chambers (10th edition), but it was clear enough from the wordplay, and on further checking plenty of online dictionaries show it as one word. LOI was GALLOPING after I finally got GURKHA.

  10. A quick 35 mins for me. Like others enjoyed PORTCULLIS. CLONE came with little difficulty in this context as I had my mobile cloned in Hong Kong, which was was not uncommon I was told by the police in the early 2000s
  11. A galloping 12:54 with PORTCULLIS the stand-out clue for me.

    OUTHOUSE always raises a smile in these parts (Nova Scotia) thanks to local photographer and cultural icon Sherman Hines, author of “10 highly visual outhouse books”. They’re things of beauty and extremely funny. Thanks to Sherman, there’s scarcely an outhouse in Atlantic Canada that hasn’t been memorably photographed and preserved for posterity.

  12. Solved in 7.21, held up by the CLONE for some strange reason. RIGHT ON has been in every other cryptic for the last few weeks, so I suppose it had to arrive in the Times eventually. PORTCULLIS was my stand-out clue.
  13. I found most of it straightforward, but the clues for entries in the SE corner seemed that much more cryptic, so I was slow to complete that lot. 30 minutes in all. The definition for 14 was excellent.
  14. Not much (or indeed anything) to add to what has already been said. Steady solve at 12:13 with mild panic and a slight delay at the end when faced with G_R_H_ for my LOI.

    COD to portcullis, natch.

  15. Help! I don’t see where “Facts” comes from in 7D.I had assumed “Pacts” for “agreements” was beheaded, but I cant see Facts at all. Thanks.
    1. Blame sloppy editing on the part of the blogger, which has now been amended. As Captain Mainwaring liked to say on these occasions “I was wondering which of you would be first to notice that.”
  17. As a parson may I add a few of my favourites:

    SMP Saying My Prayers (much needed for tough cryptics)
    RMB Reading My Bible

    SP in Nairobi

    1. LNS – late night solve
      WA – wasp attack
      ESCORT – eating soup, curry or runny taramasalata
  18. Some of us would have to have:
    ULP – unaccountably losing the plot
    MGB – mind gone blank
    ASL – half asleep
  20. Not much to add for this puzzle that’s on the lighter side of things. I just shrugged at FLATTERY after I saw the ‘fry’ and ‘latte’. LOI was CLONE, again, without understanding what it was all about. I don’t know if we have a corresponding term over here; I don’t recall ever hearing one. About 15 minutes, and I agree that the ‘keep closer’ stood out. Solved while CDDW (cooking dinner drinking wine) last night. Regards to all.
  21. A sub 20 minute for me today which is about as quick as I ever get so definitely on the right wavelength. LOI was outhouse. A few went straight in from the definition and were worked out post solve which always helps the time (coincide,diction). On a different note, as my subscription was automatically renewed in May, I have been given access to The Times on-line until June 30th 2014 which is handy. However, I was recently given a Kindle for my birthday and was wondering if it is possible to use my free access on the Kindle. Many thanks and regards to all.
  22. Nothing to add (NTA) except 14 mins WW (watching Wimbledon) loved ‘keep closer’.
  23. Seems an age since I had the time to do the Times but thoroughly enjoyed today’s offering. About 30 mins DWW (drinking white wine – well a very pleasant Chardonnay from Australia as you asked).
  25. Loved that sotira. Mine would be – SWAK. Submitted while absolutely knackered.
    1. SWAK is very neat. But for sheer usefulness I think Penfold has it with WA. I mean, who hasn’t been attacked by a wasp while solving?

      Edited at 2013-07-03 01:32 am (UTC)

  26. FK (fairly knackered). Given that, I suppose I shouldn’t really be too disappointed with my 6:25, but I felt I should have been (indeed thought I had been) significantly faster as I had no major hold-ups. However, looking back I can see that the senior moments, and the checkings that I really had understood the wordplay, and (particularly) the mistypings, must have added up.

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