Times 25,552

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
23:03 on the club timer. I know there isn’t a timetable for these things, but like yesterday’s, I’d class this one as “unexpectedly tricky for its day”, based on my experience of alternate Tuesday puzzles. However, there was nothing I’d class as unfair (barring one obscure Americanism); for the most part it just required methodical detective work and occasional inspiration to unpick, so I’d give this top marks as a puzzle towards the higher end of the difficulty scale.

Across
1 BISTRO – 1ST in BRO.
5 IZVESTIA “IS” Versus ESTONIA. It struck me that we’d had this not long ago, and indeed a quick Google tells me it last appeared on May 3rd this year; on that occasion it was spelt IZVESTIYA, which, it was pointed out, isn’t the usual spelling, and here is the proof.
9 VEHEMENT – HE, MEN in VETERAN, as in “Vietnam vet”.
10 MALAWI – LAW in MAIN.
11 PULL BACK – Spoonerism of BULL PACK; expressing it as “transfers of capital” creates a top class surface for this clue.
12 TIPPLE – TIP(=pour),PLEASE. Thank you, bartender.
13 NEARSIDE – River inside [NE(=Tyneside),Area,SIDE].
15 HYPE – hidden in reverse in sleEPYHead. I was a little uncertain here, as I’d always thought the conventional abbreviation for hypodermic was “hypo”, but it’s in the dictionary. Plus it’s one of those rare Times words which is all checkers, so no problems.
17 SHOE – SHORE minus laboureR; to match 15ac, I had doubts about this one, which were dismissed because all the letters are checked; the definition (“maybe casual”) is a bit weak, if you ask me, and the definition of “shore” is somewhat obscure, at least as a noun – this sort of “shore” is the post with which you “shore up” something which is threatening to fall over. Minor quibbling, anyway.
19 PSALMIST – [(LP)rev.,MIST] around SA.
20 MASONS – stONes in MASS(=service) &lit.
21 SHERIDAN – E.R.(=HM the Queen=”leading lady”) in (DANISH)*. Author of The Rivals and The School for Scandal
22 RED TOP – Reporter,ED.,Time,OPus. Possibly obscure to non-UK solvers: the “red tops” are the down-market tabloids, some of which often have a splash of red in their masthead at the top of the front page.
23 ROOMETTE – MET(=settled) in ROOTED. I spent a while looking for a word ending in NY, but it’s just a generally American word (though pretty easily deduced by non-American solvers)
24 DOPINESS – Daughter OPINES Son.
25 EATERY – dEpArTsEaRlY.
 
Down
2 INEQUITY – I,[QUIT in (YEN)rev.]; several normally speedy solvers have a single error, I wonder if it’s doing what I nearly did, i.e. seeing “I QUIT” and writing in INIQUITY without thinking any further…
3 TREELINE – cryptic def.
4 OPERA HATS – (HARE)rev. in Old PAT’S, Pat being a non-gender specific name. Though I suppose the hats can be worn by anyone if they really want to, as well.
5 IT TAKES ALL SORTS – (LAST,TALKS,TORIES)*. A nice political surface.
6 EXAMINE – (Idi) AMIN in EXE. Lovely misdirection with the capitals.
7 TRAMPISH – [MP(the military policeman in this case rather than a Parliamentarian),1] in TRASH.
8 ANISETTE – (TISANE)* and TEA(e.g. Lapsang Souchong) without the A.
14 DRIVE HOME – double def.
15 HAMMERED – [ruM, MERE] in HAD(=enjoyed).
16 PASSED UP – PASS(=academic achievement), FED UP.
17 STRIDENT – pronounceS, TRIDENT.
18 ONE-ACTER – [CAEN in (RE:TO)]all rev.
19 PONTOON – PRONTO minus the Rex, ON(=playing).

26 comments on “Times 25,552”

  1. … I’m afraid to say. My heart sank when I saw the dreaded double-E grid coming off the printer. The clues for the completely checked 15ac and 17ac (the only ones ever in a Times grid) are always close to impossible. So “shore” as prop/beam is typically rare as is “hype” for injection. Then we have the “planes” (DBE for trees) at 3dn in a bloody cryptic def. And “man’s (or woman’s)” for PATS at 4dn. Mon dieu! I need a small beer.
  2. Definitely towards the top end of the scale – 30’30” on the clock. This was not one that repaid instinctive entries improperly parsed: ABSINTHE at 8 (most of the letters were there) and INIQUITY at 2 the prime examples from my struggle. Same misgivings over SHOE and HYPE: “shore” and “post” are at best kissing cousins, and while I was prepared to accept HYPE as an injection (of publicity, perhaps) I wasn’t sure of “receiving” as the containment indicator. Perhaps the setter created these particularly dodgy clues because they were all checked: lets not give the solver an easy 8 checkers.
    I wonder whether ONE ACTER might be another trip up for the leaderboard solvers – it does look wrong even though it’s right, and if it had been an across clue I would probably have written in the O on reflex.
    Good, heavyweight cluing. TREELINE gets top marks from me for its simple but very effective deception, would have been last in if I’d got INEQUITY right at first bash.

  3. Wow! Bit of a struggle, but got there eventually, but with ?s all over the place: IZVESTIA (unknown), SHOE (well, it had to be that, but why…?), ONE-ACTER (couldn’t parse) , OPERA HATS (ditto) etc.

    Well done, and many thanks to Tim for sorting it all out.

  4. A tough one. Had TREELESS in 3D for a long time, which further complicated the choice at 15A of HYPE (wordplay) or HYPO (the only abbreviation I knew for hypodermic). Took a while to see the wordplay of ONE-ACTER, though that time was well spent as otherwise I might have been tempted by ONE-ACTOR.
  5. COD and last in, after 67 minutes, VEHEMENT. Probably not alone in ignoring the ‘reportedly’ at 5ac and putting in ‘Isvestia’. Slowed myself up by writing ‘poronto’ at 19d. I saw a banner the other day telling me 5 ways I know I’ll get Alzheimer’s – I’m only hoping this isn’t one of them. Too afraid to click and find out now…

    Both the fully-checked words were pretty weak; maybe the setter thought ‘To hell with it, they don’t need a decent clue!’ -:)

    Edited at 2013-08-13 08:37 am (UTC)

    1. That’s pretty much what I thought…given you don’t need to solve either of them to complete the puzzle, it’s hard to get really worked up about them.

      (Actually this sounds a bit Zen, now I consider it. If a clue doesn’t need to be solved, is it a clue?)

      1. Like the undergraduate who answered the Philosophy question ‘Is this a question?’ with ‘Is this an answer?’
  6. I finally completed after 53m 27s, so far from quick, but I was pleased to get there without recourse to any aids. Didn’t like ‘roomette’ – not because of the clue or solution, I just think that it’s a ghastly word.
    George Clements
    1. I think its ghastliness may have something to do with the fact that most words that take the dimunitive -ette suffix are Latinate, whereas ‘room’ is of German origin. Just doesn’t work like, say, ‘majorette’.
  7. 24 mins, which I am happy with because it wasn’t an easy puzzle.

    I was probably fortunate to have seen TREELINE right away, but I initially wrote in “iniquity” at 2dn without parsing it properly and didn’t correct it until I realised that VEHEMENT had to be the answer for 9ac. I had most trouble in the SW with the MASONS/DOPINESS/HAMMERED crossers my last ones in. This was definitely a puzzle in which one had to pay very close attention to the wordplay.

  8. Definitely on the hard side. Took me comfortably over an hour. I was mildly irritated by TRAMPISH – one of those non-words that only ever appear in cryptic crosswords (like yesterday’s THREADY) – and the ghastly Americanism ROOMETTE, but all in all a high-class puzzle with some fiendishly tricky wordplay (e.g. ONE-ACTER, my LOI).
    1. Thready turns up often enough in medical dramas, when the handsome doctor is only able to feel a weak pulse before pulling off a miracle of resuscitation.
      1. I have to say that I’ve never encountered “thready” in this sense, but I’ll look out for it now you’ve mentioned it!
  9. Quite agree it’s an awful word. It’s not usually used for apartments in Manhattan though – a bedsit is called a “studio” in realtor-speak. A “roomette” is a sleeping compartment on Amtrak. It’s perfectly true however that my first Manhattan apartment had all the size and comfort of a roomette. Must have been on the wavelength for this one because I clocked in at just over 20 minutes.
    1. There have also been ships, including a liner, called ‘Manhattan’; and that wasn’t my only difficulty.

      Edited at 2013-08-13 06:14 pm (UTC)

  10. Pardon me for my ignorance but what is meant by checkers as in 15 and 17 across? And why is the ‘in’ the clue for a restaurant rather than ‘for’ say in 25 across, though I should have seen the answer just by looking at the odd letters anyway but it threw me to start with, looking at the letters in bistro …
    1. Where a letter from an across and a down clue coincides, it’s called a checker because it gives you another way to check the correctness of either answer independently. (Look out also for the word “unches”, where “unch” = unchecked, i.e. the letters in the grid which only form part of one clue.)

      As for the “in”, I see what you mean, and “for” might have been more elegant, probably only the setter can tell you that, but I think it’s because those sort of connecting words are usually regarded as more or less ignorable and interchangeable. To be honest, I didn’t even consider it, which shows how you stop really noticing them after a while…

    2. Checkers are letters that are shared with another clue. I think the setter used “in” rather than “for” in 25 ac as a possible misdirection. A hasty solver could think that the definition is “characters in 1” which could lead to “eaters” based on the checkers.
  11. Somewhat over the hour for me today but it was definitely a puzzle for taking slowly and studying the wordplay rather than bunging answers in and hoping for the best as there were several traps along the way that others apparently fell into.

    I’ve never done a word count but I wonder if this puzzle might break the record for the most wordy clues. I reckon it would take a good 5-10 minutes to read them all properly even without writing any answers in.

  12. 38 minutes, very different from yesterday’s. Not quite sure about ‘capital’ standing for ‘initial letter’ in 11; but a welcome alternative to the good old Dr Spooner. At first slightly appalled by roomette then entertained and finally drawn to it somehow as to a quirky individual.
  13. This took me almost an hour, with the last 10-15 minutes pondering 3, 9 and 10. The delay in getting 10 was down to the fact that I wasn’t certain of the crossing MASONS as I missed the wordplay and thought it might be a CD. I finally saw through the ‘plane’ deception to get 3, and 9 fell quickly after.

    Some very neat clues. 19dn and 24 had very elegant and deceptively simple surfaces.

  14. Thanks for help in parsing 4, which went in reluctantly.
    As I needed to go out, leaving puzzle unfinished there’s an extra 3hr on my time. On return didn’t see I’d carelessly got STENDHAL at 21, so couldn’t get anywhere in SE till I had another look, then after getting 17 hastily put in EATERS at 25 without checking against clue. Finally INIQUITY stopped me getting 9 for a while, so actual solving time about 85min., including that going to aids to look for words that might fit my wrong checkers.

    Edited at 2013-08-13 01:38 pm (UTC)

  15. First Times solve since last Thursday but, having been up since 3 am to fly home, and having struggled with 3d/13a I was pleased to finish in 20 minutes.
  16. 27/29 today with Roomette and One-Acter missing. Thanks for parsing those Tim plus Opera Hats (a guess) and Masons.
    Got 1ac at first look but took an age to get many more thereafter until I got Sheridan then It Takes All Sorts.
    Izvestia beat me last time so I was pleased to dredge it up when I had I????T?A.
  17. 32m. A difficult puzzle, which I made more difficult for myself by putting in wrong answers: SNOWLINE, INIQUITY, PASSED BY. A lot of clues where I got the answer from the definition, and took a long time to unravel the sometimes over-engineered wordplay. Still, a good workout.
    Last in was VEHEMENT, once I finally reconsidered INIQUITY.
  18. 11:57 for me in an awfully slow but quite steady solve in which most clues fell at a first reading. For some reason I got cold feet over TIPPLE as my LOI and wasted time looking for an alternative. Nice puzzle.

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