Times 25565: Two fine rulers

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving Time: 21:47 — including all the parsings

Not a hard puzzle with quite a few going in on the literals alone — “Like mules”, “one anticipating the worst”, etc. Which just left a few retro-parsings to do. By the same token, a couple of unknown words that could never be solved from the literals: PARBUCKLE and NESTORIAN. Of the two monarchs, the weedy one was by far the hardest to work out. I suspect most solvers will have found the bottom half a bit tougher than the top.  Last in was the gal at 20dn who happens, coincidentally, to be a shrub.

(The blog today is a bit over-laboured. I had a few personal requests from beginners asking for more details.)

ACROSS
1. TIDE RIP. Our fish is the IDE, inside TRIP.
5. MARTIAN. Reverse the last two letters of our first girl, MARTINA.
9. CORK,SCREW. The Irish province including County Cork and a colloquial prison guard.
10. BELOW. Saul is Bellow, the novelist. “Half hearted” = just the one central L.
11. EXIST. E (English), XI (cricket team), ST (street, way).
12. UNDERWOOD. Which is “under-wooed” minus the E from “clEaners”. Not the famous spin bowler … he’s still with us.
13. GOOD KING HENRY. An anagram of “kind hoe{i}ng” inside GORY (bloody). The literal is “weed”, of which I know nought, though I have just about every other kind of weed in the garden right now after a winter of almost constant rain. And it would seem that many gardeners consider it more valuable than a mere weed.
17. GOOD QUEEN BESS. The supplies are GOODS. Insert QUEEN BE{e}S, the dominant women.
21. OBSTINATE. IN (popular) inside OB (outside broadcast) and STATE (say).
24. IRONY. IRON (smooth), Y{outh}.
25. TONDI. Included in the clue.
26. PESSIMIST. Reverse MISS (teacher) + IS; all inside PET (bad mood).
27. CARVERY. Today’s cryptic def.
28. NOMINEE. O (old), MINE (pit) inside NE (of England where County Durham happens to be). I’m trying not to be reminded of Chester-le-Street.

DOWN
1. TICKET. Sounds like “tick it”.
2. DERRING-DO. Our theologian is a Doctor of Divinity, DD. Add O (for “over”, as in cricket). Insert ERRING (sinning).
3. RISOTTO. SOT (drunk) + T{asted}; all inside RIO.
4. PARBUCKLE. P (pressure), AR{c} (short section), BUCKLE (give way). A new one on me: “a loop of rope arranged like a sling, used for raising or lowering casks and other cylindrical objects along an inclined plane” (NOAD).
On edit: Ulaca prefers PAR{t} + BUCKLE (“give way under pressure”). This seems fine to me. See discussion below.
5. MOWED. M (millions), OWED.
6. REBIRTH. RE (soldiers, Royal Engineers); homophone for “berth”.
7. IGLOO. I; LO (see) inside GO (run). Another where the literal gives it away.
8. NOWADAYS. NO WADS (lack of money) including the archaic/poetic AY for “always” or “ever”.
14. NON-PERSON. N (note), ON (about). Then PERON (Evita) with S (son) inserted.
15. NESTORIAN. {o}NE, {hi}STORIAN. Another new one to me: “the doctrine that there were two separate persons, one human and one divine, in the incarnate Christ. It is named after Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople (428–31), and was maintained by some ancient churches of the Middle East. A small Nestorian Church still exists in Iraq” (NOAD).
16. AGNOSTIC. Anagram: in G coast.
18. QUININE. QUIN (one of five), IN, E.
19. ELITISM. IT inside ELIS (Eli’s, high priest’s), M (for “mass”).
20. MYRTLE. ELM (tree) including TRY (several points in the various rugby codes), all reversed.
22. SONAR. SOAR (rocket, verb) including N for “new”.  Again, the literal gives it to us.
23. APPLY. We had this on 16th of this month (25555). A Jonathan is an apple; so “apple-y” is one possible way to pronounce “apply”.

52 comments on “Times 25565: Two fine rulers”


  1. 16:59 .. All pretty slick stuff. I very much liked CORKSCREW (and TICKET and MRYTLE).

    LOI .. NESTORIAN, but of course.

  2. 31 minutes, but so many from the literals with parsing worked out afterwards that I didn’t especially enjoy this one. Would have been under half an hour but for slamming in ‘good time harry’ and ‘obstinant’. Thanks to Macca for the parsing of MYRTLE, where I was held up on the try line.

    I can imagine a soldier in a berth on a troop ship or a train, but it still seems more of a sailory word to me.

    1. Now that’s a new one! I usually get MacMisprint or other, less kind, monikers. Accordingly changed my userpic. (I do actually own the one shown.) Assume my knighthood’s in the mail.
      (-;
  3. Comforting to see that I wasn’t the only one flinging in solutions on the basis of checkers and defs only. I was wondering what the R in PARBUCKLE was, having parsed it as P + a + R +BUCKLE. Oh, well. Didn’t know of the weed, and was wondering which of the Henrys one would have called ‘good’. Also DNK OB=outside broadcast, and indeed didn’t know ‘outside broadcast’ until a day or two ago. And of course didn’t know PARBUCKLE, probably my LOI. NESTORIAN surprised me, as it seemed a bit recherche for a daily cryptic. Didn’t we just have an APPLY-like clue? Liked MYRTLE and CORKSCREW.
  5. Oops! I was just now going to edit my posting, having looked more carefully at mctext’s blog, but too late. Sorry; but I actually had thought it was a different word the last time. I should never post after dinner.
    1. Interesting. We’re looking for a truncated word for “section”. PART fits the bill. But so does ARC as section of a circle. And “buckle” can be just “give way” as well as “give way under pressure”. So I guess both parsings could stand. What do others think?

      Second thoughts: if we say that someone “buckled under the strain” or “buckled under pressure” (as we do), then the “buckle” part just means “gave way”. Still I’m happy with your reading.

      Edited at 2013-08-28 04:34 am (UTC)

      1. Collins has for ‘buckle’ (5): ‘to bend or cause to bend out of shape, esp as a result of pressure or heat’. I can imagine a sentence like, ‘Faced with having to score 100-odd with seven wickets in hand, Australia buckled.’
        1. = “… Australia gave way”. The pressure is supplied by the antecedent. Still, to repeat, I think this (your) reading is fine and Jack (below) seems to agree. Just can’t rule out the way I read it … not at the moment at least!

          Edited at 2013-08-28 06:10 am (UTC)

  7. 50 minutes, but I lost time by a) falling asleep briefly at one point, and b) getting stuck at the end with 14 and 15 outstanding. My unknowns today were the brush, the weed, PARBUCKLE (I had Ulaca’s parsing) and NESTORIAN.
    1. I too read PARBUCKLE in the same way as Ulaca. PAR[T] seems much more likely for “short section” than AR[C], though I agree that a case for the defence could be made for the latter; and BUCKLE seems fine for “give way under pressure”, which is exactly what the word means. The one weakness in the clue seems to me to be the redundant “a”.
      1. At the time I went for Ulaca’s version but now I wonder why the setter would have bothered with “under pressure” at all if not to give us the P as the surface would work just as well without it (unless he or she likes to shoe-horn songs by Queen and/or Bowie into his or her puzzles. (Maybe there’s a Nina as 80s band King (see 13a) had a song called fish (see 1a)).

        Anyway, I agree with Mike that either way the a is unnecessary.

        1. The ‘a’ is unnecessary, but it’s inclusion does not strike me as a weakness. Setters use ‘a’ to indicate a noun and ‘to’ to indicate a verb, where A and TO are not part of the answer. Provided the redundant ‘a’ is not overdone I don’t see a problem.
          1. Point taken. But for my taste the best clues are those in which every word is indispensable for the wordplay.
  8. Thanks, mctext, for the blog. I found NE the hardest quarter and still could not parse MARTIAN properly until coming here: I kept trying to justify a way to insert a T into MARIAN!
  9. 17m. Much more my cup of tea today: a number of unknowns (the weed, the church, TONDI, PARBUCKLE) with clear and unambiguous wordplay.
    Either parsing for PARBUCKLE seems fine to me: I sort of fell between two stools. I was initially looking for something to go under P for “pressure”, then saw that “part” would work for “section” and bunged in the answer without even noticing that I had a spare P.
  10. 28.20. Found this a little tricky with the odd unknown. Ulaca’s good time harry should be the next-discovered weed – or new drink or whatever – too good to lose. Nice thought setter in any case with the monarchs.
  11. 27/30 today with Nestorian, Obstinate and Agnostic missing. Had the anagram material for the latter but a wrong Surgery not Carvery at 27ac did for me. Pity – I solved the other 26 clues as quickly as I’m ever likely to.
    1. Not if you click the link in the blog. But that’s very speculative. Seems clear, though, that it was GOOD HENRY (as opposed to the bad sort) before the KING was added.
      1. Right, the source I was quoting was Merriam-Webster

        Origin of GOOD-KING-HENRY: – influenced by the name of Henry VII †1509 king of England

        Edited at 2013-08-28 09:06 am (UTC)

  13. 15 mins with plenty going in from the definition alone, so not really my kind of puzzle.

    The previously unknown PARBUCKLE was my LOI and I parsed it like Ulaca, but the alternative works too. I knew NESTORIAN so I wasn’t tempted by “Harry” in 13ac.

  14. Not my sort of puzzle. As others have said too easy from definitions alone or with an odd checker. Didn’t know PARBUCKLE but saw it as PAR(t)-BUCKLE or NESTORIAN. Didn’t like sin=err. CORKSCREW the petunia in the GOOD KING HENRY patch.
    1. Not sure why you don’t like err for sin, Jimbo. It’s in Oxford, as well as the Bible, with this meaning!
      1. I would have thought you could have guessed!!

        To err is to make any mistake, big or small, and we all do it all the time

        The word “sin” is religious in context and not something that I personally recognise. I don’t mind what others choose to believe but I do bridle slightly when those beliefs are imported into my way of life. No big deal, just a personal thing.

        1. Err = sin is still used in a churchy way; to recognise the usage is scarcely to bring it into your way of life, I’d have thought. Otherwise we’re all in trouble with a lot of things.
        2. I didn’t consider any personal belief system – or absence thereof – when I made my comment. Honest, guv! And to be fair to the word itself, it esentially means to wander or go astray.
  15. 23 minutes with a few correct guesses, e.g. NESTORIAN, agree with Jimbo but the monarchs were amusing and I saw it as PAR(T)BUCKLE as well but both parsings work.
  16. 10ac.: was reluctant to enter this till I had checkers, as agree with Conrad it’s not a weed.
    Held up in SW by having SURGERY AT 27, but LOI was 1dn, as I’d unthinkingly entered TURNSCREW at 9, with some vague idea of a part anagram of ‘Munster’
  17. I keep a whole bed of it. A serious food plant, much more nutritious than spinach and not attacked by slugs etc.

    Conrad

  18. Nothing particularly complicated here but nothing much fun either. I knew about Nestorius and derived Parbuckle without any prior knowledge of the word.
  19. 3 hours or so on the club timer, which equates to 13 minutes or so of solving time, so easy enough even if GKH as a plant king was not really known.
    Today with no paper version, I logged in to the Times site on my Android tablet, got to the crossword page and was delighted to find not just a keyboard but a submit button, but no grid and no clues. So off to the club site, in case they’d provided a keyboard, duly found grid and clues (and set the clock running) but no means of entry. Ah me! If they could just put the two together…
  20. 14:51 with the unknown NESTORIAN the last one in. I found it a mix of the very obvious and the ‘what on earth’.

    Oh… apart from Nestorian, I found the top harder than the bottom!

    Edited at 2013-08-28 12:03 pm (UTC)

  21. 38m DNF with unknown Nestorian and Parbuckle doing for me. Enjoyed the Good monarchs and guessed at Tide Rip though I’m more familiar with it the other way round. Thanks for blog – much appreciated and also glad of previous blogs which meant that I wasn’t stumped by Jonathan this time!
  22. 30 minutes. I found this pretty straightforward even with the seldom encountered parbuckle and Nestorian. I thought it was an enjoyable puzzle with some good clues. The only one I thought slightly unsatisfactory was the CD for 27 with the very unnatural use of ‘imposed’ (in the context of carved meat).
  23. Surprised not to see LORDS AND LADIES elsewhere in this puzzle which daringly includes…. related answers. I’m not sure this was drab as bigtone53 suggests, but maybe some zing could have been added. At least it remained shy of too many difficult words, though PARBUCKLE? What is that!

    29 minutes.

  24. 16:18 and far more enjoyable than yesterday. I found top and bottom about the same in terms of difficulty.

    COD to agnostic for the well-hidden anagram fodder and nice lift & separate of Gold Coast.

  25. About 30 minutes, ending with the PARBUCKLE/CORKSCREW pair. I liked the latter once I finally saw it, but the former from wordplay only, never heard of it. Same for NESTORIAN. The other unknown was TONDI, which I haven’t looked up yet to discover what kind of paintings they are. Beyond that, no problems. Regards to all.
  26. … and that blank was the unknown NESTORIAN.

    Thanks for parsing PARBUCKLE (either way!). I couldn’t work out the R, having parsed it like kevingregg.

  27. My new printer has still not arrived so I’m having to solve online again. 26.29. The timing is an improvement on my trusty alarm clock. This is only my second attempt at online solving – first was yesterday – and I think I’m getting the hang of it. But I think that I’ll be going back to the printout with my morning cuppa just as soon as my new machine is set up. I’m glad today’s puzzle was quite easy. A lot of the answers went in from definition alone. I don’t think my newly discovered online technique could have coped with a difficult crossword. Ann
  28. Started this way beyond bedtime last night, got most of the acrosses on a first look and left it to polish off this morning. Strange beast this one as I got the good royalty on a whim that they were joined and then added in NESTORIAN from it fitting the spaces (it’s related to a well-known setter’s pseudonym) and MYRTLE without seeing the wordplay.
  29. Considering how slowly I started, my 7:50 perhaps wasn’t too bad. I started on the acrosses, and only got BELOW and EXIST out of the first six. So I switched to the downs, and after wasting far too much time trying to work out how “pass” could mean MARKET in 1dn (before light eventually dawned), I suddenly found the setter’s wavelength.

    After that, the only clues I missed at a first reading were PARBUCKLE (which older solvers may remember from the illustration in the original Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary, so I should really have got that straight away as well) and MYRTLE. I got NESTORIAN from the wordplay, but I knew the word anyway.

    1. “which older solvers may remember from the illustration in the original Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary, so I should really have got that straight away as well”

      Should we infer you know the dictionary by heart, including the illustrations? Wow 😉
      Rob

      1. Sadly not, Rob. It’s just that one or two of those old illustrations have stuck in my mind. And a few outlandish words from when I first started attempting Ximenes and the Listener crossword back in the … (oh dear!) the late 1950s it must have been. After that, there were just too many to remember, though a few more are lodged somewhere at the back of my mind and will occasionally shuffle forward when needed.
  30. Nothing to add to the previous comments. Quite happy with my time as I wasn’t trying to hurry, and it’s early morning. Good night all.
    George Clements
  31. I parsed ‘parbuckle’ as ‘par’ = abbreviation for ‘paragraph’ = short section, followed by ‘buckle’. Don’t know if it holds up as ‘para’ is a more common abbreviation, but it worked for me.
    George Clements
    1. I also parsed it as ‘par’ = paragraph (short section). Par is a common journalist’s abbreviation, rather than para. Sue

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