Times 25,528 – not necessarily in the right order?

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Just under 10 minutes, for a puzzle which I thought had a pleasantly old-fashioned feel to it. In line with that, I could be wrong, but my instinct suggests this will be a puzzle where experienced solvers will have a much happier time than relative newcomers i.e. there were several words or phrases (vale, fret, simple) where, as soon as I saw them, I thought “Aha, potential trap ahoy”. This put me into a very wary state of mind, so I was also pretty quick to spot more than one definition where I was left thinking was “Does that definition work here? Yes, I suppose it does, even though it’s far from the most obvious meaning”, but I wouldn’t be surprised if others found parts of this quite opaque. As always, though, there’s only one way to find out…

Across
1 MOTIF – MOT(French for “word”), + “IF“.
4 COME AGAIN – double def.: one literal, one synonym for “please repeat that”.
9 CANONISED – CANON(=minister), (DIES)*.
10 ROBIN – ROB(=”sack”) + IN.
11 IN TOTO – N.T + O.T inside [I,0].
12 PROPERLY – PROPERTY with Left instead of Time.
14 INACCURATE – IN(=trendy), ACcount, CURATE(=ordained minister). This made me chuckle by association, as it calls to mind one of the funniest sketches ever performed on British TV.
16 FIRM – FIR(=wood) + Metal.
19 TARA – The hill of Tara is the ancient seat of the Kings of Ireland; break it up – with a hyphen – and it becomes TA-RA, which is a form of goodbye (“vale” as the Latin for “farewell” here, and nothing to do with valleys).
20 INCOHERENT – (TOINNCHEER)*.
22 CHERUBIC – HER(the girl) in CUBIC.
23 REDONE – RED(embarrassed)ONE(individual).
26 TWEED – double def., the former apparently stemming from the latter…
27 HERBALIST – cryptic def. which relies on the alternative meaning of “simple” as a traditional herbal remedy.
28 HOT-HEADED – [THE AD] in HOuse, EDitor.
29 STERN – WESTERN without WE(i.e. you and I).
 
Down
1 MACHINIST – ACHIN’ in MIST. As used in the expression “sea-fret”.
2 TENET – ThEiNtEnT.
3 FANATICS – Area inside F(loud),ANTICS.
4 CAST – CASTLE.
5 MODERATION – ORATION with MODE instead of 0.
6 ABRUPT – P(quiet) in [A BRUTE].
7 AUBERGINE – IN in AUBERGE. Luckily for those of us who shudder when the definition is simply “plant”, a well-known one today.
8 NANNY – ANN in New York.
13 BRANDISHED – BRAND,1,SHED.
15 AGREEMENT – MEN in A GREET. Without checkers, I made valiant efforts to fit AFFIDAVIT in here, with FF as “fellows”, all obviously to no avail.
17 MOTH-EATEN – (MENHATETO)*.
18 VETERANS – VET(=check) (SNARE)rev.
21 MUDDLE – D.D.(Doctor of Divinity) in MULE(=cross).
22 CATCH – double def.
24 ON ICE – I(=this writer) in ONCE(=no longer).
25 GRID – GRIND minus n(=mathematically, any number).

29 comments on “Times 25,528 – not necessarily in the right order?”

  1. Another morning’s slog. Apropos Tim’s intro: I wasn’t taken in by “fret” or “vale”, but neither helped much. And neither did “opinion” (TENET) which I still find a bit loose. How many named hills are there (19ac), I wonder?

  2. And that one was ABRUPT, where I had ‘apropo’, thinking it was an anglicised version (yes, McT, I know it usually has an ‘s’ at the end!). And then not thinking any further than that, really…

    The other one I had a ? at was TA-RA, since I’d not heard of the hill of Tara, but that at least fitted the definition ‘vale’.

    I’d finished most of it in about 40mins, but took an age to get VETERANS, thinking that the whole word was ‘up’, and it had to begin with ten- .

  3. Some fellows also made me put in AFFIDAVIT at 15D – maybe the same ones who convinced me of MOTET at 1A (that alien …) LOI TA-RA as I didn’t know the hill of TARA and was trying to fit TOR into it somehow.
  4. Got there in the end today with the SW corner again proving the trickiest. FOI Tenet, LOI Hot-Headed. I didn’t quite understand the wordplay for Ta-Ra, Moderation or Herbalist so thanks Tim for the explanations.
    Chuckled at Mule = cross in Muddle.
    We’re growing an aubergine in our vegetable patch. So far so good – it’s obviously liking all the sunshine we’ve been having.
  5. 17 mins. I’m another who put in MODERATION from the definition alone. At 16ac I initially entered H,ELM despite wondering why a helm would have a metal facing, until I saw that 7dn had to be AUBERGINE, went back to the drawing board, and realised that FIRM was the answer. Nice misdirection, as was 17dn where I thought the definition was “spruced up” for a while. My hold-ups were all in the SE. I got HERBALIST after I finally realised what “simple” was doing in the clue, which then gave me enough checkers to get BRANDISHED, followed by my LOI, INCOHERENT.
    1. H,ELM was my first in and more or less justified in my mind as metal armour that protects the head and face. Fortunately there was no doubt about the answer at 7dn so I was forced to rethink.

      Edited at 2013-07-16 09:52 am (UTC)

  6. Fully agree with Tim’s comments – an easy one if you’ve seen all the little tricks before. Not sure a castle is always impressive but hardly important. There are lots of words for “mist” of which FRET is but one and most of them crop up from time to time. 15 casual minutes to solve.
  7. Serious hold-up at 22a, having CATCH at 22d, looking for an F in 15, and considering RIDDLE at 21, though ‘cross’ is ‘riled’. So that was LOI, as I needed to get all the downs before I could even think of anything that would fit.
  8. 10m. I’m experienced enough to have seen “simple” and “vale” – not to mention “cross” for “mule” – quickly, but not enough to remember coming across “fret” before. “Tara” is also crossword knowledge for me, and the poem “If” is much more prominent in my mind from appearances in crosswords than from appearances in my education. So in short, definitely a puzzle in which a bit of experience helped.
    And yes, the word “plant” can induce a sense of panic even when the answer turns out to be so familiar.

    Edited at 2013-07-16 09:25 am (UTC)

  9. 28 minutes without seeing the rationale for properly (which could equally well be property?) or moderation, and forgetting the hill Tara and half-justifying with an awful (Ar)arat up. What a stayer ‘If’ is. This one seemed to lack yesterday’s cutting edge, crosswordlite, as I suppose the majority are.
    1. I think “left for a short time” can only mean “replace T by L” rather than the other way round, which forces PROPERLY to be the correct answer.
  11. 18:39 .. all present and correct.

    Thanks for the link to one of my absolute favourite television memories, Tim. I watched it a couple of months ago when their writer Eddie Braben died, but you can’t watch that one too many times.

  12. A rather slow and scrappy solve for me. TA-RA is, I think, more of a northern thing than a southern. I don’t think I’d ever heard it before Coronation Street.
    2. Also popular in the Birmingham / Black Country part of the world, where you’ll often hear the valedictory phrase “ta-ra a bit”.
  13. Something went wrong this morning – maybe it was a late start, maybe it was the phone call from my under 2 grandson (great vocab, just not much of it English), maybe I was just off the pace. Whichever, nothing really clicked in my 26’43” solve this morning. Given that it was clearly a breeze for most. Some hold-ups:
    MOTHEATEN: swapped anagram indicator and definition
    MOTIF: looking for ET
    TWEED: any river, any cloth…
    CHERUBIC: went for SERAPHIC first, no decent reason but a caution against going by definition only
    VETERANS: looking for net or gin and all backwards.
    Too many vicars…
    TENET: opinion? Really? (Chambers, unhelpful to my cause, says “any opinion…” Dictionaries, eh? Who needs them?)
    Tried to work FF into AGREEMENT
    Only accepted CATCH once CHERUBIC was in – thought both defs a bit of a push.
    Didn’t fall into the vale, fret and simple traps, just found a whole lot more of my own. Obviously not seasoned and experienced enough – thanks guys! But then I did manage yesterday’s in quicker time than most: today I’m nearly 3 Keriothes, yesterday I was about 0.3.
  14. 8.14. Agree with the ‘old-fashioned feel’ comments. No trouble with the plant as it is in the FT today, although as the inn rather than the plant.
  15. 17:06, becalmed for a wee while at the end by a fair chunk of the SSE corner with brandished eventually last in.

    COD to moth-eaten where it was far from abvious which end carried the definition which the anagrind.

    Didn’t get a chance to comment yesterday but my main beef with the difficult “ibexes” was the rather inelegant “of” as the all-important link word.

  16. Thanks for the M&W clip Tim. Very good indeed, up there with “Who’s on first”. This would have been a workmanlike effort for me except that I (and no doubt others) had “tata” in 19a and then stared at what on earth was to be done with 15d. “Antitheft”? I don’t think so. It was especially stupid of me because “Tara” is regular filler in the NY Times puzzles. 20.41
  17. 48 minutes with COD to incoherent. Fret almost always collocates for me with ‘sea’ to make a sea fret.

    Isn’t Eddie Braben another to add to the list of famous Canadians? My daughter was distraught this week when another died aged just 31. The lead from ‘Glee’ for the uninitiated.

    1. Since coming to live in Canada I’ve learnt that there are an awful lot of famous Canadians. The problem is that most people – often including most Canadians – think they’re American.
      1. Since marrying a Canadian I’ve also been aware of this, and contractually obliged to remember the list. Repeat after me: Jon Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Mike Myers, Leslie Nielsen, William Shatner, Jim Carrey, Michael J Fox…
  18. Didnt time it, but only had a few sips of coffee so it can’t have been that long. I did rather confidently write H,ELM in at 16 and thought it was a nice clue, I was disappointed to see I was wrong when I got AUBERGINE.
  20. First post for a while – the toad work is squatting on my life at present – but I found this on the easy side in 22.30 and therefore must have seen the tricks before despite my novice status. In fact I almost believed this was a repeat puzzle that I hadn’t quite remembered.
  21. I’m so glad that others also considered ‘helm’ for 16a, as I felt a right twit when I had the checking letters, and corrected to ‘firm’. Not a quick time for me – I thought that it was 26m 44s but when I looked at the blog I realised that I had not filled in 19a – ‘Tara’, which I did quickly, so, around about 28m. This is the second time that I have encountered ‘Tara’ as farewell within a week, and I can’t say I really like it: I feel that it is a bit hard for overseas solvers unless they have met the expression previously in crosswords.
  22. A sluggish 11:18 here – as usual the heat seems to be frying my brain. VETERANS gave me a particularly hard time, and TA-RA sounded only vaguely familiar (Cilla Black perhaps?), not being in common use either on my side of the Pennines or in London (as far as I’m aware).

    Edited at 2013-07-17 12:25 am (UTC)

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