Times 25545 – Yes, 1 across sums it up nicely

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 35 minutes

Music: Old Blind Dogs, Wherever Yet may Be

A typically moderate Monday puzzle that I made relatively quick work of, being in a bit of a hurry to catch up after wasting a weekend playing golf and goofing off. I did not help myself by putting in a few howlers like ‘peg’ and ‘opera’, only to think better of them in the end. Most of the clues were surprisingly simple if you don’t think about them too hard.

Across
1 NONDESCRIPT, anagram of SECOND PRINT, and surprising difficult to solve for me.
7 PAS, P + AS….not e.g.!
9 DUTY BOUND, DUTY + BOUND, only cleverly disguised with a lot of padding.
10 AMOUR, first letters of A[nger] M[y] O[xford] U[niversity] R[oommates].
11 AT HEART, A T(HEAR)T, the Tourist Trophy lives forever in cryptic puzzles!
12 AFFRONT A + F + FRONT.
13 PULSE, UP backwards + LSE, the London School of Economics. A very fine clue with a well-disguised literal.
15 HOPSCOTCH, H + OP + SCOTCH, a bit of a chestnut.
17 OFF THE PEG, OFF + THE + PEG in various thinly-disguised senses.
19 EXTRA, double definition, with not even a glance at the cricket meaning to fool outlanders.
20 ROSTRUM, OR backwards + STRUM.
22 TIPTOED, TIP TO ED[itor].
24 ABOUT, A + BOUT, and not ‘afoot’ as I first suspected.
25 CORPOREAL, CORPOR(E)AL.
27 ELY, [l]ELY. An easy clue for those who have been doing these puzzles for a while, since both Ely and Lely make frequent appearances.
28 CONCENTRATE, C(ON CENT)RATE.
 
Down
1 NOD, DON upside down.
2 NOTCH, NO[-r]T(C)H, not exactly a letter-substitution clue, but close.
3 EMBRACE, simple double definition.
4 COURTSHIP, anagram of OSTRICH UP, where ‘and running’ is the anagram indicator.
5 INDIA, IN + AID upside down; the lift and separate fooled me for a bit as I tried to make ‘dacha’ work.
6 TRAFFIC, anagram of CRAFT + F + I, which I just put in from the literal.
7 PHOTOSTAT, P(HOT)OST + A + T[ory].
8 SCRATCH CARD, SCRATCH + CARD in two not-very-esoteric senses.
11 APPROPRIATE, double definition, a bit of a chestnut.
14 LIFE STORY, LI(F)ES + TORY.
16 PAGE THREE, PAGE + anagram of THERE. For once, the topless girls are really topless, not just missing their first letter.
18 HERETIC< HER + CITE upside down.
19 EXPLOIT, EX + anagram of PILOT.
21 MACON, M(A C)ON. This gave me trouble because I had never heard of the wine. Macon is also a city in Georgia, which would have been easier for me.
23 OMEGA, A + GEM + O upside down…not quite the end.
26 LYE, in [extreme]LY E[legant].

56 comments on “Times 25545 – Yes, 1 across sums it up nicely”

  1. Guess Vinyl’s said it all. A bit of a comedown after two quite hard puzzles at the weekend. I thought ‘on’ was a strange linkword at 20ac. Not too fond of ‘piece of cork’ for C (21dn); or the DBE in 23dn.

    Surprise of the weekend: it rained in Manchester!

    Note to Vinyl: great choice of music. But isn’t it “Wherever Yet May Be”?

    Edited at 2013-08-05 06:50 am (UTC)

    1. I didn’t mind “piece of cork” for C, but I was surprised to see it in a Times puzzle. Some years ago when I used to enter the Times CC clue competition the judge at the time commented that devices such as “bit of…” “piece of…” to indicate initial letters were not used in the Times.
      Obviously times have changed and The Times has changed.
  2. I didn’t time my performance today, but it was not much more than 20 minutes, so probably my fastest ever.
  3. 29 minutes without hurrying so this must have been easy, but not without some queries along the way possibly because I thought more about some of the clues than was merited.

    For example at 9ac I wrote in the answer on the strength of the first two words and a couple of checkers and then spent time trying to make sense of the remainder of the clue, which I still don’t really get and I wonder if there is as much padding as vinyl suggests or are we perhaps missing something?

    I’m also not overly convinced about “pursuit/courtship” which sounds a bit predatory, and stretching things further than “cultivate/woo” as queried by Dave in yesterday’s ST blog.

    I’m concerned that I don’t recall meeting LYE before which surely cannot be so and is probably further evidence of a failing memory.

    Edited at 2013-08-05 05:27 am (UTC)

    1. Yeh, there’s a bit of padding in there. It’s just “limit” = BOUND with DUTY (tax) [to be laid out] = to be inserted, up front. Padding in the square brackets; required for the surface syntax I guess. Or else, it could be read as DUTY = “tax to be laid out” — a different kind of padding.
      1. I agree with your reading of 9A, Mctext. But why “legally obliged”? To be “duty-bound” simply means to be “obliged by (a sense of) duty”, not by law. Am I missing something?
  4. 16.50, a bit of hopscotch. Not sure about ‘legally’ in 9; ‘morally’ or simply ‘obliged’ seems better. And I agree with mct on the floating piece of cork. Such things, and clues such as 3, are or should be subtimesian.
  5. Somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes for me (didn’t time it accurately but it was less than 20 minutes from the date on the printout and I didn’t start immediately). Close to a personal best if not an actual PB.

    No problem with the wine since I drove up the autoroute from Nice to London many times when I lived in the south of France. It is pronounced with a hard C (since there is no cedilla) unlike the French word for a mason which has a soft C (and the cedilla: maçon)

  6. 11:31, despite not being able to make any kind of start in the NW. I wondered at bustle=PULSE, the literal being rather too well disguised for my liking. Or am I missing something?
    Contrast EMBRACE, which works so well as a single definition it might well have escaped from the T2.
    Does anyone still own a PHOTOSTAT?
    CoD to AT HEART, where I was properly diverted by “Really try”.
    1. Do you mean the machine or the print-out? If so, I have many treasured examples of the latter, especially the original lectures of the good and great Harvey Sacks, photostatted (?) from earlier Roneos!! All bound in black and kept from sunlight since the 1970s.
      1. I’m impressed! I’m a big fan of early technology, especially if I can get it to work, way beyond the advent of superior equipment. I have happy memories of using a Roneo electrostencil cutter coupled to a Gestetner duplicator to produce newsletters in the ’80s, and I still have a Compaq LTE laptop 286 (vintage 1989) running quite happily on DOS 6.1.
  7. Thought this might be a PB as I seemed to rattle through it, but 8:55
    it was and a minute and a half over the aforementioned. Still, sub-ten is pretty rare for me anyway!
    Never heard of lye and banged in peg instead of pas in my haste, before scratch card put me right. Enjoyable, but over rather too quickly…
  8. fairly straightforward today, though not as easy as some.

    To be fair to the setter,
    – the Tourist trophy lives on in reality as well as in crosswords.
    – ODO defines “Duty bound” as: (morally or) legally obliged to do something.
    – and “pusue” as: persistently seek to form a sexual relationship with (someone: “Sophie was being pursued by a number of men”

  9. I do the crossword in The Times app on my iPad, which today helpfully has the solution to the Prize Crossword for Saturday 3 Aug. Don’t know why I bothered doing it!
    Just over 18 minutes, slowed up as always by the fact that the app replaces all commas and apostrophes in clues with ‘a’.
    Tony W
    1. Can you actually type in the answers in the grid in the Times app? Last time I tried, there was no keypad on the screen…
  10. 10 mins, and the 1ac and 1dn crossers were my last in. I finished the RHS before the LHS but that wasn’t because it was easier, at least not in retrospect. My FOI was PAS, SCRATCH CARD followed immediately, and I just worked my way around from there.
  11. Like lots of people, somewhere very close to a PB. I think it’s probably easier to set a real stinker than it is to set a puzzle which is this far over to the friendly side of the “degree of difficulty” scale, while still satisfying everyone to some degree, so this is quite nicely done in that regard.
  12. Joy! After several years of trying I have just completed my first sub-30 minute puzzle.

    Tom C (A regular lurker)

    1. Congrats, Tom! Why not sign up for free and stop that lurking?

      Edited at 2013-08-05 01:12 pm (UTC)

  13. Probably one of my fastest ever solves. I don’t time myself, but managed to finish this, the Concise, and both Sudoku puzzles within 45 minutes. Bit of a let down really, since it’s August Bank Holiday here in Ireland and I could have done with something a bit meatier.
  14. I found this pretty easy and completed it in 18 minutes. The one that gave me slight difficulty at first was 13, where I was looking at the wrong end for the definition.
    I wasn’t that keen on 3, which is hardly a double definition; the first is merely a figurative form of the second.
      1. In my view, and judging from comments I’ve seen elsewhere, the most successful double definitions are those where the two meanings are very distinct, perhaps taking the solver by surprise; that is not the case here.

  15. Back from a couple of weeks away to a nice straightforward puzzle to get back into the swing of things. About 30 mins or so for me.

  16. 11:05 so back to easy Mondays it would seem.

    Nothing else to add except congratulations to those who posted PBs with this one.

  17. Cricket update as I write:

    England didn’t do it.
    They didn’t have a clue. It
    Was the bloody Manchester rain
    What done us in again.

    1. Again, you say? Weren’t last time
      or time afore, the pastime
      of tests of war together
      were done in by bad weather.
  18. 15 minutes of ease after a weekend’s mullering.

    I note that, in the cricket, we have knocked off 10% of the required runs at a cost of 30% of our wickets. And that rain has stopped play three balls after lunch.

  20. It works on the app. The website doesn’t work with iPads though, which is a ridiculous state of affairs.
    1. Still can’t get it to work… Maybe it’s because I’m using a first gen iPad?
        1. Glad that it is working now. My IPad is protected by a Zagg case-and-keyboard which lets me type rather than poking things on a screen but it is still annoying that with their updates, The Times app will not deal with the “a for ‘ ” thing in the clues. We know that they can do it, as they did with the short-lived experiment of putting a (small) touchscreen keyboard on the page. I think that this lasted two days.
          Tony W
      2. Possibly… no idea!
        When I tap on the clues a keyboard comes up.
        Bizarrely the crossword app for the Sunday Times puzzle is completely different.
  21. 18.12 and so a rare sub-20 though might have been sub-15 had I not put TO heart for11a and then stuck on 11d my LOI. Closer inspection revealed the problem. Like the cricket ditties. Thanks to all and blogger!
  22. Solved at the beach – my watch said 1pm when I started and 4 mins past when I finished. So a definite personal best for me, but whether just under or over 4 minutes I have no idea.

    Not sure whether a dip in the British sea for the first time for several years before solving this crossword affected the brain power but just wondering, if so, where I can fit in a dip in mid October!

    1. I solved Saturday’s at the beach (Scarborough) but didn’t brave the North Sea and I now know why I struggled with the puzzle.

      As for October you could pretty much swim from Tower Hill tube to Thomas More Square via St. Katherine’s Dock.

      1. I’ll be meeting Crypticsue at Stratford International with a nose clip and some goose fat.
      2. Don’t fancy swimmng in the Thames.

        As for Saturday, you struggled because IMHO it was a beast of a puzzle!

  23. No major hold ups today – except to correct Peg to Pas. Solved in four bursts during the morning. I liked the Tip-to-ed clue the best.
    Spent the weekend camping in the Lake District at Low Wray near Ambleside. 3G access there but no wifi and no crosswords. Once I’ve finished/given up on Friday’s puzzle I’ll make a start tonight on the weekend’s pair.
  24. 12:03 .. Solved belatedly with a post-migraine hangover (which is a bit like a regular hangover but with none of the fun beforehand) so I for one am very grateful it was a walk in the park.

    In fact, my biggest delay was the five minutes or so it took me to realise just how easy it was and to recalibrate accordingly, by which time Sue and others had finished it. But I’m still not going swimming in the ocean in a British October. My dedication only goes so far. I volunteer to look after the towels.

  25. Went through this in 20 minutes, ending with NOD only because I noticed I had never filled in the “O”, otherwise LOI was SCRATCH CARD/PAS after correcting from ‘peg’. Dance steps are not my strong suit. Not much else to say. Regards.
  26. I’m not sure that i would call TRAFFIC a sort of light. I’ve never come across Traffic as a short or colloquial reference to traffic light. Have I missed something?
    1. Seems fine. NEON would be OK as “sort of light” to me although nobody ever says “a neon”
      1. That sets me thinking, sort of ring… GOLD. for gold ring?? If ring = band, the a clue, “Sort of band” could never be GOLD! -Drex (can’t remember the passwd to login, apologies)
        1. Well, GOLD seems to general to be clued as sort of ring (t could be sort of bar or sort of coast), but MARRIAGE or ENGAGEMENT would be fine with me. I’m not sure what the meta-rule is here. I realize it’s not that consistent.
  27. 7:07 for me. I suspect this was the setter whose definitions I find a bit tricky – anyway that’s the reason my time was comparatively slow.
  28. LTRFTW

    Today marks the first (and hopefully not only) time I’ve managed to solve the Times crossword. Time: unknown – but I doubt it would trouble the scorers.

    TftT is a wondrous resource of information, and I would like to thank all who take the time to post and explain the solutions; your help to those like me is invaluable, and very much appreciated.

    Martin Hill

    1. Congrats, Martin. Feels good, huh? I doubt that what I laughably think of as my contributions explain anything at all to you but I’m sure the regular bloggers appreciate your appreciation.
  29. 17 minutes, so probably a PB for a regular weekday puzzle. A dip in the sea did it for Cryptic Sue – for me it was a long w/e in Guangdong and the handful of past Paul Prize Guardians I printed out and took along for entertainment. Bracing as a dip in the North Sea.
  30. How great to have two new contributors who finished the Times crossword for the first time. Congratulations and good wishes to them; I still remember the feeling of joy the first success brings, although I was very, very slow. As others have said, both speed and accuracy improve with practice, and with the enjoyable routine of checking the blog for explanation of any clues that one may find elusive. Today’s puzzle took me just under 14m, so not another personal best, but I wasn’t intent on beating the clock, just following Jack’s relaxed approach.
    George Clements

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