Solving time: 21:48
Taking a leaf out of Jack’s book, I decided to take this one as slowly as possible. But it wasn’t all that difficult. There’s still one I can’t parse (26ac) and await revelations from the “community” (yuk!).
And today’s news from down here is that News Ltd (the Australian Murdoch press) has ditched our leading setter bar none. Another good reason perhaps to beware?
Across
1. MADEIRA. MADE, I{sland}, R{ight}, A.
5. AGITATO. A, G{ood}, 1 (one), T{ime}, AT, O (=Oval). Let’s hope Australia has such a thing later in the month eh?
9. LEVITATED. Anagram: let TV idea.
10. PIPIT. P{iano}, I, PIT.
11. COLON{y}. Which can be used like this: to break a sentence.
12. RETALIATE. Reverse I LATER, ATE (scoffed).
13. PRE(POSSE)SSING.
17. AFRICAN VIOLET. I CAN (I preserve) + VIOL; all inside A FRET. One of the few fretted instruments I don’t play.
21. COPYRIGHT. COY (modest), RIGHT (sounds like ‘write’, to author) inc P for ‘power’.
24. THROW. TH{e}, ROW.
25. DEL(H)I. Today’s dead giveaway.
26. INITIALLY. Has to be the answer, but I have no idea how it works. All help gladly received.
On edit: see Jack’s first comment. L.A.S.E.R stood for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation”.
27. SL(E)IGHT.
28. TANKARD. T{avern} + anagram: drank a.
Down
1. MALI(CE).
2. DEVELOPER. Two literals: real estate and photography.
3. INTENSE. ‘See’ and ‘saw’ are different tenses of the same verb. Liked this one best.
4. AFTERNOON. Anagram: a front one.
5. AUDIT. A, U{niversity}, DIT (Morse Code for E).
6. IMP,ALAS. The Chevvy of said name was always my favourite.
7. ALPHA. The key here is the ‘A’ (before ‘star’), where Alpha is the international radio sign for that letter. Then think: Alpha Centauri or Alpha Crucis, etc.
8. OUTWEIGH. Hear: out way.
14. SHINTOIST. Anagram: this is not.
15. INTER ALIA. A cryptic def. If we include ‘and others’, the class of said things is not exhausted.
16. BAR CODES. Another cryptic def.
18. CUR(L)ING.
19. LATVIAN. Anagram: valiant. “There was a young lady from Riga …”, etc. (Even if it is officially pronounced |ˈrēgə|.)
20. SWAYED. Hidden.
22. PULSE. Two literals.
23. G(R)IST.
Never heard of the lady of Niger.
A pretty smashing example of an easier puzzle – INTENSE, COLON, SWAYED, THROW … good stuff.
Edited at 2013-07-31 12:49 am (UTC)
Today I finished in 28 minutes so it was definitely at the easier end of the scale of difficulty.
For some unknown reason I’ve always been under the impression that Madeira is a rich red wine so I looked several times at 1ac before writing it in and I’m pleased that misapprehension has now been corrected.
At 19dn I missed the reference to the Lady from Riga completely and got myself embroiled in early 21st century economic terminology involving Baltic, and specifically Latvian, tigers, so thanks to McT for explaining that.
Edited at 2013-07-31 05:21 am (UTC)
Edited at 2013-07-31 01:45 am (UTC)
On edit: Paul has a cracker in the Graunie today.
Edited at 2013-07-31 06:34 am (UTC)
This one felt like a quickie with mines. The NW was invaded almost unopposed but then odd clues kept detonating uncertainty.
I took DIT to be the spoken form of · in Morse code, dah being the other. I felt slightly smug at remembering that · was E. I had no idea about the tiger rider, but couldn’t think of another anagram of valiant, so in it went.
I’m sure the acronym explanation for INITIALLY is correct, but while solving I took the whimsical route of “in the manner of an initial L” and was prepared to come here and say how clever I thought it was to invent an adverb in this way.
DKK MADEIRA is white, and recall that when much younger (and more innocent) I could not understand how anyone could be seduced by Michael Flander’s offer of cake. Wasn’t the young lady’s mother’s advice (with her antepenultiomate breath) “look not on the wine when it’s red”?
CoD to INTENSE. Took ages for the penny to drop, long after the answer had been written in.
Then there flashed through her mind what her mother had said
With her antepenultimate breath:
‘Oh, my child, should you look on the wine when ’tis red
Be prepared for a fate worse than death!’
She let go her glass with a shrill little cry.
Crash, tinkle! it fell to the floor.
When he asked: ‘What in heaven … ?’ she made no reply,
Up her mind and a dash for the door.
Have we ever had ‘zeugma’ in a Times crossword?
Edited at 2013-07-31 08:05 am (UTC)
“She was young, she was pure, she was new, she was nice,
She was fair, she was sweet seventeen.”
How times change!
There’s definitely something about a computer screen which affects the perception – I wonder, were those nice cognitive science people from the University of (Buckingham?) looking at solving mediums in their recent study of crossword solving?
Is it hard-wired into the human brain? Or is it because our writing goes across the page, not down?
Leading to other questions: Do Chinese, Japanese (and other downward script) speakers find it easier to check down answers? Or are they inherently handicapped in writing and reading compared with us, as the human brain is hard-wired to read crossways?
Rob
Edited at 2013-07-31 08:53 am (UTC)
Not to be confused with inter alios, of course. I know this because it’s an error a certain type of lawyer seems to relish correcting in someone else’s drafting.
I don’t like 1A. MADEIRA is any fortified wine made on the island and comes in four main types according to sugar content and grape used. Change “white” to “fortified” and the clue is accurate.
I thought 7D ALPHA was rather good.
But I agree with you!
Edited at 2013-07-31 01:20 pm (UTC)
It’s slightly odd to describe MADEIRA as a “white wine”. There are dry white examples but it’s usually fortified, and I’m not sure I’d describe sherry this way.
I didn’t know viols had frets. I do now.
I didn’t know the limerick so 19dn went in with a shrug. Glad to see the Times widening its range of literary sources!
Thanks for parsing ALPHA: I didn’t have a clue. The phonetic alphabet always seems to catch me out.
I couldn’t parse INITIALLY or LATVIAN even though the answers were fairly obvious, so thanks for the explanations.
I had no idea what was going on with the tiger, though. I wonder how often it happens that the setter and editor nod approvingly and put in a reference they both think is pretty clear-cut, but which practically nobody* on the solving side seems to recognise? On the flipside, 3dn was a device I’ve never seen before, but when the penny dropped, I really liked.
*I appreciate this assumption is based solely on comments here and elsewhere from a small and unscientific survey sample, and may be completely wrong.
I think ‘white’ is a misleading description of MADEIRA, even though technically correct.
Doesn’t affect the answer though!
Mark I
Otherwise a nice puzzle, completed in 15:45. I made the connection between Morse/E/dot/dit quite quickly so no issues there.
I got held up at the end by impalas (I’d considered ???ALAS but of course no words look like that) and agitato, where my lack of classical music training, and belief that oval might be EGG and time ERA, had me dreaming up brand new notations like ALEGGRO and AGERATO.
I wouldn’t even know which end of a viol to blow into, never mind whether it has frets, which makes it just as well that the plant (unusually) went in on def and checkers alone with wordplay only considered post-solve.
Recovered from that and got there pretty quickly with only a shrug for INTER ALIA and LATVIAN.
Thanks mctext
Chris.
Thanks mctext for explaining African Violet, Intense, Audit and Latvian.
I live in NY and have been doing The Times cryptic in the NY Post for the past year or so. The puzzle in the Post comes out around 10 days after original publication so I’m always way behind you guys. Finally broke down and got an online subscription today so was able to do the puzzle on the same day. And completed the puzzle correctly for the first time ever!
I’ve greatly enjoyed this blog and just wanted to say thanks to all who contribute.
Mike from NY
Hope to hear plenty more from you.
Edited at 2013-07-31 08:07 pm (UTC)
Welcome Mike. In addition to those Olivia mentioned, I think kevingregg is from NY also.
As for today’s puzzle, taking it steadily, ala Jack, I completed in 18m 36s, but, like many others was completely mystified by the parsing of ‘Latvian’.
George Clements
Despite knowing the 19dn limerick perfectly well, I didn’t put two and two together and wasted time wondering if Latvia was supposed to be a tiger economy. I’ve no objection to the non-rhyming of “Riga” and “tiger” though – after all it’s arguably better than