Times 25536 – Baby Gaga

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
The English-speaking world cannot help but be overwhelmed by the massive media hoo-ha surrounding the birth of a royal who will be king. Good for you, GB and the piece that got my biggest cheer was a cartoon showing ERII with her dog behind a curtain in Buckingham Palace peeping out to see below the balcony Prince Charles, Prince William and a baby in a pram in a row, as though serenading or carolling with the caption “We, three kings of …”
Back to the serious business of the Times Crossword … another cracker from this superior panel of anonymous setters. I really enjoyed solving and blogging this delightful offering. What a nice start to another lovely day.

ACROSS
1 BACHELOR Johann Sebastian BACH + ELOR (rev of ROLE, part) What a crackling start with such a lovely def leading man at start of Wedding Cantata … my COD
9 AVE MARIA Ins of VE (middle letters of IVES) + M (mass) in A ARIA (vocal solo)
10 WIND FARM WIND (take a circuitous route) + FAR (distant) M (motorway)
11 PROSODIC *(DISC POOR) prosody is the study of versification; the study of rhythm, stress and intonation in speech.
12 ROTISSERIE ROT (in decline) IS SERIES (large part of chain)
14 SCAR An &littish acrostic
15 SETTING SETT (badger hole) IN G (GROUND minus ROUND, bullet)
17 REVERSE Ins of S (Southern) in Paul REVERE (1734–1818), an American patriot
21 OBOE *(BOLERO minus Left and Right)
22 WRISTWATCH Cha of WRIST (joint) WAT (eastern temple) CH (church)
23 BRISLING B (British) + RIESLING (wine) minus E (European) for a Norwegian sprat
25 HANDBOOK HAND (worker) BOOK (reserve as for a table in a popular restaurant) This always reminds me of whenever I buy a new gadget and cannot wait to tear off the wrappings and inserting the battery and then expecting it to work, like in the shop. After many minutes, you hear the wife saying gently “Read the instructions, dear
26 ANATHEMA AN + A (answer) + THEM (those people) + A
27 MARKETER Ins of ARK (chest) in METER (something to measure)

DOWN
2 AVIEMORE A (ace) + VIE MORE (to compete again) for a Scottish tourist resort popular for skiing and other winter sports.
3 HEDONIST Ins of DON (fellow) in HEIST (robbery)
4 LEAT Ins of A in LET (permitted) for a trench for bringing water to a millwheel. I learn a new word today
5 RAMPART R (rook) AMP (ampere, a unit of electric current) ART (skill)
6 DENOUEMENT DEN (study) OU (Open University) EMINENT (distinguished minus IN) meaning unravelling of a plot or story; the issue, event or outcome.
7 PRODUCER PRO (for or showing support) DUCE (the title assumed by the Italian dictator Mussolini) R (right) Franco Zeffirelli is an Italian director and producer of films and television.
8 SANCERRE *(CANS) + ERRED (almost went wrong) for the white wine produced around Sancerre in the Loire valley.
13 SONGWRITER Ins of G (good) in *(OR WINTER’S)
15 SHOWBOAT *(BOOTH WAS)
16 TROPICAL Ins of R (river) in TOPICAL (current)
18 ERASABLE ERA (rev of AREA) + SABLE (a large predominantly black antelope of S and E Africa (Hippotragus niger), with long, ringed backward-curving horns)
19 SICK NOTE SICK (disappointed) NOTE (comment) not really an earth-shaking clue
20 GINGHAM GILLINGHAM (town in Kent) minus ILL (sick)
24 ONER NERO (emperor) with O (over) moved to the front

Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(FODDER) = anagram
yfyap88 at gmail.com = in case anyone wants to contact me in private about some typo

36 comments on “Times 25536 – Baby Gaga”

  1. 21:42 … normal service resumed after yesterday’s nightmare.

    BACHELOR is fiendishly good, as Uncle Yap says, but I’ll cast a vote for GINGHAM and its neat surface.

  2. I thought at around 25′ that I might just squeeze in under the 30, but was slowed way down by AVIEMORE (DNK), WRISTWATCH (and what indeed is the tourist doing?), & ROTISSERIE. I kept trying with that last one to put some word for restaurant inside some word for decline; then I could only think of ‘patisserie’. It also took me forever to realize that ‘Norwegian fish’ meant Norwegian fish, and to stop thinking of Norwegians. Was it the Zeffirelli R&J that starred Olivia Thing and some beautiful boy? All I remember is that it had the worst rendition of a Shakespeare song that I’ve ever heard.
    When Ignacio Silone came to Rome from his isolated village as a young man in the 20’s, he found himself caught up in what appeared to be a political rally, where everyone was chanting “Che-DOO! Che-DOO!” and he couldn’t figure out what was going on until some time later.
  3. 57 minutes but one wrong (brilling for the unknown BRISLING). Lots to like (eg 11, 15 and 16) but ROTISSERIE gets my COD for the deception of ‘decline’, where I thought I was looking at an instruction rather than a substantive wordplay element. Since I am re-reading Tristram Shandy, ‘rampart’ was a write-in. I wait avidly for cuvette, ravelin and redans.

    I saw Zeffirelli’s beautiful version of Romeo and Juliet as an undergraduate in some Oxford fleapit. It’s interesting that two magnificent works – the other being Westside Story – have been fashioned from one of Shakespeare’s ropiest plays.

    On 1ac, I wonder if the clue isn’t a bit too clever for its own good. A Wedding Cantata – Bach’s at any rate – can be played at the end as well as the beginning of a wedding service, indeed more commonly at the end according to one researcher.

    Put ‘restricted area rearing’ down as as novel a way of producing ERA as one is likely to find!

    (A minor amendment at 7 dn: I read PRO as ‘showing support for’.)

  4. A slowish but thankfully (after yesterday) steady solve of a very lively and enjoyable puzzle. I’ve also never heard of LEAT before.

    I didn’t know Zeffirelli as a producer and solving this clue cold with no checkers I’m afraid I immediately thought of ‘lamppost’ as ‘support for Mussolini’.

    What is ‘tourist’ doing in 22ac?

      1. I think you’re right that “Tourist” is a type or brand of wristwatch and that’s explanation – simple if one happens to know it, which I didn’t!

        Edited at 2013-07-25 07:32 am (UTC)

        1. I’d be a bit surprised – the Tourist-Everlight Watch Company takes a deal of tracking down on Google, and doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia page.
          1. I’ve never heard of the watch brand, but even if I had I don’t think it helps: “one way [wristwatch] may see his time…” makes no sense at all!
              1. I think the inclusion of the word tourist is to indicate we are looking for a portable timepiece rather than say a Mantle Clock?
  5. Superb crossword today I thought; 25:57 most satisfying mins and secs.
    Didn’t know leat or sable as an antelope but both eminently gettable from the cryptic. Also perplexed by the tourist in 22ac.
  6. 21’44”, with a couple of minute at the end trying to justify ERASABLE: the usual suspects for antelope such as eland and gnu weren’t helpful, and like others I knew sable the fur(ry creature) but it couldn’t be that, could it? Area is so often just A, and restricted so often an enclosure indicator – that didn’t help either.
    Otherwise a steadyish solve which required sharpening up on vague knowledge: I had ???ISSERIES sitting in the grid, not connecting the rotisserie bit of a BBQ with a whole restaurant. Gillingham is one of those towns (like Sidcup in “The Caretaker”) which I know but can’t point to on a map. I left the E out of MARKETeER with a shrug – not a pretty word.
    It also required abandoning some superfluous knowledge: that there IS a Bach Wedding Cantata, one of the elements that makes 1ac such a well conceived clue; Schubert wrote Winterreise; Booth was the assassin in the theatre; Zeffirelli produced “Tea with Mussolini” and was a senator with Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party; Paul Revere’s reputation as a patriot is almost complete fabrication.
    All pretty clever stuff for seasoned solvers, and much more fun than yesterday’s.

    Edited at 2013-07-25 08:24 am (UTC)

    1. The Gillingham in Kent is pronounced Jillingham I believe. There’s another in North Dorset pronounced with a hard G. If you can’t find the Kentish one you stand no chance with my neighbours.
  7. Not a difficult puzzle but I was rather put off by the length of the first 4 across clues, also the on-a-plate nature of Johann Sebastian and the contorted surface of 10A. Assumed that the tourist was there merely for the surface. Remembered LEAT from last time as someone had mentioned Longleat as an example of its use.

    COD to 21A for the unusual device.

  8. 39 minutes, last in (by a stretch) the restaurant. The tourist padding in 22 is uncomfortable. Otherwise all fair enough, with only the first clue raising the stock. Incidentally ulaca, I take issue with your comment on ‘R. and J.’ – maybe you’re too familiar with the story to appreciate its perfect freshness?
    1. The lyric poetry is of the highest stamp, but the story is very thin and there’s only so much sympathy one can feel for such a love ’em and leave ’em type. As I say, though, it was highly inspirational, as Prokofiev’s music is arguably the best work he produced.
      1. I don’t find a problem with the suspension of disbelief that a satisfactory story sets in place and lets continue. As for the love-’em-and-leave-’em type, the question I usually get from students is not why did R. leave but why didn’t J. go with him? I doubt if either was asked by the first spectators.
        1. I for one have never found the story satisfactory. In fact I think it’s decidedly silly.
  9. 23m.
    I didn’t enjoy this as much as others. I thought some of it was a bit loose: that tourist, for example, or “something to measure” as a definition.
    There were also an awful lot of clues where the wordplay required you to remove a bit from a word (SERIES, GROUND, RIESLING, EMINENT, ERRED, AREA, GILLINGHAM). It’s quite hard to spot both the word required and which bit to remove so I ended up solving them from definition and reverse-engineering the wordplay after the event. This is less fun than doing it the other way round.
    Lots of unknowns today: the fish, the ski resort, the stream, the deer.
    Interesting to see a compound anagram at 21ac. A rare bird in a Times context.
    1. I think the literal is ‘one selling something’ with a verbal METER (‘to measure’).
  10. I think of Times crosswords as ‘limbo’ puzzles when I just creep under the 30m target with my belly scraping the bar. This one took me 29m 04s, and I had to suspend parsing 14a, where I missed the acrostic, and erasable, which I would not have understood without Uncle Yap’s help. Nevertheless, after yesterday’s workout, a pleasant warm down.
    George Clements
  11. A nice 9.47 for me – the restaurant held me up the longest – thanks for explaining about the ‘tourist’.
  12. Am unable to get into online version at all today – clicking Play always gives message
    (TypeError):Cannot call ‘trackTcrossPlay’ of undefined

    So only option was to select ‘Print’ (where the ‘Print Grey’ button didn’t seem to work} and use ctrl-P to get a hard copy – took about 40min to solve, but of course can’t submit.

    Thought ‘landmark’ an unsatisfactory definition at 10, and ‘tourist’ was chosen for the surface at 22, but the clue needed to mention someone in the definition.

    1. for some reason, if you select print grey and it previews as black, cancel and select print grey again it come up grey. At least it does for me, an intermittent issue with their java methinks.
  13. 17:35 for an enjoyable puzzle with misdirection aplenty and quite a lot of GK needed.

    I groaned inwardly when I saw all the arty-farty references (cantata, Winterreise, Zeffirelli, Bolero, Ives…) but fortunately you don’t have to be Melvin Bragg to have heard of Bach or or to work out that with DUCE in there somewhere Zeffirelli is probably a producer. The others, thankfully, were just smokescreens, presumably there to wind Jimbo up.

    I’ve been to both Aviemore and Gillingham so no hold-ups there although overseas solvers may have a bit of trouble.

    I vaguely recalled leat from last time and my unknowns, prosodic and brisling, were easy enough to get from the wordplay.

    I’m confused about sable now. If I want to make myself a top-notch paintbrush and a fetching stole, do I go out and kill an antelope or a furry squirrely thing?

  14. 25 minutes AG(19) for a relatively straightforward if at times rather verbose puzzle. The ins and outs of 1A were completely lost on me. I just thought the wording carried unnecessary padding – like the tourist in 22A (I don’t buy any of that stuff about brands of wristwatches – it’s just padding). Knew all the GK so no hold-ups.
    1. Just for the record, I don’t buy the stuff about brands of wristwatches, either, jimbo. I only mentioned it as a curiosity.
      1. I did suspect Sotira, knowing you as I do.

        On the topic of curiosity, I’ve been catching up on today’s news and see that some clever people have finally worked out that in East Dorset people stay married longer and live longer than anywhere else in the UK. I’ve been trying to keep this a secret for years but the genie is now out of the bottle – damn!

        1. You’d have never have reckoned on that, Bournemouth comprising half of E Dorset!
          1. Bournemouth and Poole are both unitary authorities and thus not considered part of Dorset. Much of East Dorset was once in Hants but was moved into Dorset to increase the County’s Council Tax revenue. Bournemouth responded by going unitary and Poole – not to be outdone – followed suit
            1. I spent holidays in Swanage and then Wimborne Minster every year from 1969 to 1976 so remember B’mouth’s ’74 transition from Hants to Dorset well. Was unaware of the latest developments, but note Wikipedia keeps its options open by saying that B. is in the ‘ceremonial country of Dorset’.
  15. Hmmm… I’m surprised this one got through the editor, if M. Zeffirelli is still with us, isn’t he no-go territory in the Times?

    Everyone is waxing lyrical but I thought there was a little too much “general” knowledge. Never heard of the town, so needed all the checkers for GINGHAM, had to work out the ski place from wordplay also needed the wordplay for BRISLING. On the other hand, great clues for ROTISSERIE and BACHELOR.

  16. 22 mins early evening, so probably on a par with a mid-morning solve when I look at the other times for this puzzle.

    As others have said, some of the cluing seemed to be unnecessarily verbose, and that took some of the fun out of it for me.

    I took too long to see the SHOWBOAT/TROPICAL/BRISLING crossers, and ERASABLE was my LOI with a shrug from the definition as I didn’t know the antelope of that name. I think LEAT came up in a recent Guardian or Indy puzzle so I didn’t have a problem with that one.

    As far as George’s point about Zeffirelli is concerned, he is still alive, or at least he is according to Wiki. However, I’m sure I read here once that a living person can be referred to in a clue but their name can’t be the answer. Or maybe I imagined it ………………

  17. About 30 minutes, ending with the TROPICAL/OBOE pair. Never heard of the Scottish ski resort, and if asked I would have opined that there are no such things, but the wordplay led right to it. Ditto re Gillingham, where I got GINGHAM from the checkers, and then figured there must be a ‘Ginghamill’ in Kent. Oops. I also remembered LEAT’s earlier appearance (and sett too). But overall much more relaxing than yesterday’s, marred only by the inexplicable wandering tourist. COD to ERASABLE for the definition, but I’m another who thought the only sable was the weasel-like one. Thanks to Uncle Yap for the parsing of OBOE, which I never saw, and regards.
  18. I had difficulty finding the setter’s wavelength in a crossword which I should really have sizzled through, and finished in a slightly disappointing 9:36.

    No objections though, except that I usually think of Zeffirelli as a director rather than a producer.

    Edited at 2013-07-25 10:32 pm (UTC)

Comments are closed.