Times 25,588

22:40 on the club timer. Some tricky stuff here, among the more obvious elements, but a generally good and entertaining midweek solve.

Across
1 COCKATRICE – COCK(=herald of dawn) A TRICE(=a second). A sort of dragon, basically.
6 ADDS – Daughter in ADS.
10 BOURREE – laBOUR REElected. I’d love to say this rang a bell from its appearance here in 2011, though it actually came just from the wordplay. It remains, now as then, “”A brisk dance in duple time, from the Auvergne or the Basque provinces”. No, me neither.
11 DRUMLIN – Large in DRUM IN(=drive home). This did ring a bell, however, probably from the extensive study of glaciers which I remember being really important in geography O-level.
12 RECESSION – R.E. (=troops) + PROCESSION(=train) minus the PRO(=hooker). There’ll be letters from Tunbridge Wells, I tell you.
13 GNARL – (RANG)rev. + Learner. More commonly seen in the adjectival form “gnarly”.
14 ADMIT – AD(VERT), MIT. See the most recently blogged Saturday puzzle for discussion of whether MIT is a college, university or other institution (I think for crossword purposes, we just have to accept that “college” is fine).
15 HEADCOUNT – HEARD(=tried) without REX, COUNT(=nobleman).
17 PENTECOST – (E.P.)rev. + (CONTEST)*.
20 LADEN – L.A., DEN.
21 AGGRO – A GANG, (O.R.)rev. with an &lit suggesting (convincingly or not) an encounter between OAPs and some younger antagonists.
23 SCUPPERED – Caught in SUPPER, EDward. I’d always thought of it as “That idea’s been well and truly put to bed”, rather than “sent to bed” myself. Close enough? Ignore me, as ulaca points out, it’s a naval scuppering, and perfectly straightforward.
25 SCOURGE – SCOUR(=purge) +(E.G.) rev.
26 FIREARM – EAR(=attention) in FIRM. Nicely misleading surface where the Colt with a capital is hidden at the beginning of the clue.
27 LYNX=”LINKS”.
28 DEJECTEDLY – EJECTED(=cast out) in DeLaY.
 
Down
1 CABER – CAMBER(=bank) minus the Motorway. The sort of trunk which is traditionally sent skyward by muscular men in kilts.
2 CHURCHMEN – [CHIME without the I] in CHURN.
3 ACROSS THE BOARD – double def. Chess bishops, of course; it took me far too long to stop looking for a religious phrase.
4 RHENISH – (HISNHER)*; along with tent and sack and It, one of those wines which is today found in many crosswords, and few wine lists.
5 CADENZA – (berlioZADANCE)*.
7 DELTA – DEALT(=handed out) with the A moved.
8 SINGLETON – (NOTENGLISH)* without the Hospital. In bridge, whist etc., a single card of one suit in a hand.
9 SURGICAL SPIRIT – cryptic def., which turns out to have no connection to Andrew Lloyd-Webber.
14 APPRAISAL – [R.A. IS] in APPAL.
16 UNDERHAND – because a hand (as in the measurement of horses) equals 4 inches.
18 OBSCENE – (BOY)rev. + SCENE(=commotion). The adult sort of “blue”, and a nice lift-and-separate.
19 TRUFFLE – Tummy RUFFLE.
22 GROWN =”GROAN”.
24 DIMLYgluM pupiL in D-I-Y.

38 comments on “Times 25,588”

  1. Not too bad until I reached the SE where I couldn’t move. But I was heading for under 30 until I bunged in REPEATEDLY at 28ac (“on regular basis”) without looking and realised it wouldn’t parse. So nearly SCUPPERED.

    Of which, I think the clue refers to the original literal: to scupper a ship, to deliberately sink it and so send it to the sea bed.

    On edit: Ulaca got there first. I shall have to learn to type more quickly!

    Edited at 2013-09-24 08:55 am (UTC)

        1. I was actually thinking of getting a little Mainwaring avatar for use on just these occasions…and now I have

          Edited at 2013-09-24 01:25 am (UTC)

  2. Just snuck under the hour on this one, with SCOURGE last to fall. Camber will forever be associated with trips in Dad’s Humber when I was fascinated by signs proclaiming ‘Adverse Camber’. Wanted to put ‘clergymen’ for the first of the consecutive ecclesiastical down clues. COD to RECESSION – can’t seem to get enough of hookers at the moment.
  3. I went up a number of wrong roads, thinking of ‘stile’ at 10ac, thinking of deleting an E at 8d, thinking ‘shock’=hair at 14d, etc., but all came right at the end. DNK BOURREE or SURGICAL SPIRIT (evidently what we Murcans call rubbing alcohol); and I was reluctant to put in SCOURGE because of the ‘urge’ in the clue. As far as I can tell, it’s only MIT that is demoted to college level. Still, it’s not my uni, so wotthehell; they’d just better not try it with Cal.
  4. 45 minutes. Another enjoyable and satisfying solve helped by spotting the long cryptics early on, but like ulaca I wasted a lot of time trying make CLERGYMEN fit at 2dn. No problems with BOURREE as it was a popular dance form adopted by Handel and others of that era, particularly in orchestral suites such as The Water Music.

  5. thanks to topicaltim for enlightening me to 28a, like mctext I put in repeatedly, although I couldn’t parse it, but, unlike the sagacious mctext, I alas eventually submitted it as complying with “on regular basis”.
    Other than that Orl Korrect, after a look-up to check bourree.

  6. DNK DRUMLIN or BOURREE, and couldn’t parse RECESSION. Nor could I parse ‘repentedly’ at 28ac. I guess that’s because it’s wrong. And not a word.
  7. 23m for a puzzle that felt a lot harder than that. I enjoyed it a lot.
    No unknowns today. I don’t know how I knew that DRUMLIN was a word, but I did. My son had to learn a BOURREE for grade two piano recently, so that was fresh in my mind.
  8. 21 minutes, felt like a proper challenge, and repaid attention to the maxim “if it doesn’t parse, it isn’t right”. I spent quite a time trying to squeeze REPEATEDLY out of the wordplay for 28, confidently put in for “at regular intervals”, before applying the maxim and getting it right. RECESSION likewise, though the initial entry on definition was right and the wordplay had to be kicked into acceptable shape.
    Liked especially the clues for HEADCOUNT where “Tried to get rid of King” misled cleverly, and SCUPPERED for its Bunterish flavour. Yaroo!
    1. Another “repeatedly” here, after getting the wrong end of the definition, but I was keeping quiet about it. Glad to have company. I did manage to correct it, having seen it as I typed. One advantage of printing out. Paused on 15a because this side of the pond it tends to be 2 words. 21.20.
  9. I struggled to get on the setter’s wavelength here and wrestled with this for 30 minutes. I’ve no complaints – it all seems fair and some of it quite clever. I remembered the dance but not the mound and laughed at the hooker once I realised it had nothing to do with rugby, only scrums.

    I think this one is best suited to working from wordplay to solution – as witnessed by a number of solvers trying to “fit” guessed definitions into the wordplay. Well done setter!

    1. Yeh, that was me! Don’t often do that. But it was sitting there, broad as daylight, and a trap. I think there’s another one in 11ac (DRUMLIN) where you see “drive” as DR and “home” as IN and “large” as L, leaving the UM. A classic case where lift-and-separate isn’t going to help. More let-hang-and-bunch-together?
  10. Very enjoyable stuff, sorry that circumstances prevented me from doing it in one sitting. Particularly liked the definitions for CABER and SCUPPERED, but all these years I’ve been talking about gnarled old oaks and ancient fellows with a gnarled faces without really knowing what a GNARL was.

    The BOURREE I know best is from Bach’s third cello suite. I’ll not give the link as that inevitably sends my comment to the spam bin but if you’re interested, Google “rostropovich bourree”.

  11. Great puzzle. Something like 36 minutes with one error that I can’t spot but must be a typo.

    My second day on the road using the iPad for this and struggling a bit. Yesterday I couldn’t submit at all (but that was thanks to being in a house where the internet dies whenever the phone rings!), today I lost 10 minutes or so to general iPad weirdness.

    COD .. probably CADENZA, maybe because it made me think of the pianist Jon Kimura Parker who I saw demonstrating his fondness for working little bits of sci-fi film music into cadenzas of classical works. He managed to get a bit of the Star Wars theme onto a full recoding of a Beethoven concerto without the conductor noticing.

    1. That brought to mind the Marx Bros in Night at the Opera when Groucho (or was it Harpo) switches the sheet music and the Met orchestra starts to play Take Me Out to the Ballgame.
  12. Ah, good crossword this.. In fact it beat me as I also put in repeatedly, stupidly as I now see.. well done setter!

    MIT doesn’t help its own cause by describing itself as an Institute, ala the WI..

  13. An enjoyable 15.38 was spent, although there was quite a bit of that when I thought the NW corner would defeat me.
  14. A very enjoyable 35 minutes solving this. I knew ‘drumlin’ was a word, but not its meaning, so that was the only uncertainty. No serious hold-ups, but after reading the clue for 9 I couldn’t get away from the image of phantom limbs after an amputation, so when the G appeared from ‘gnarl’ I was toying with ‘imagined’ as the first word.
  15. 18:52 but with repeatedly. I couldn’t parse it, of course, but neither could I parse recession or singleton and they turned out all right in the end.

    I only knew cockatrice from Heston Blumenthal’s attempt to make an edible one on telly.

    It doesnae seem to be widely known that the winner of a caber-tossing contest is the one who throws it “straightest” rather than furthest.

  16. 27 mins but I was another with a stupid “repeatedly” at 28ac. I knew I should have thought about it some more when I couldn’t parse it.

    I don’t remember BOURREE from the last time it appeared and it was my LOI. I took a while to see the DELTA/GNARL crossers, and I struggled in the NW much as crypticsue did, but at least I managed to get that corner correct …………

  17. I scribbled in DOLED and found myself facing GODEL so a rethink up here took time. Managed to avoid REPEATEDLY.. A pleasant romp.
  18. 30 minutes here. I remember a Bute Highland Games from many years ago when only one of several contestants actually managed to toss a caber so that it fell away from and in front of him – and so won. Great entertainment.
  19. I used to accompany recorder players for their grade exams. Plenty of BOUREEs there – along with Allemandes, Gigues etc. All of which crop up now and again in these puzzles. Makes a nice change from cricket! I only knew COCKATRICE a something with a den into which you are not advised to put your hand. I’m sure someone here can give me chapter and verse but the exact reference escapes me. A nice steady solve. 30 minutes. Ann
    1. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.

      —Isaiah 11 8

      1. I knew I knew it from somewhere! It must be the bit they read every Christmas in the Lessons and Carols. Where the lion lies down with the lamb.
  20. Having done bottom half in about half an hour, was completely stuck, so broke off to watch TV for a while, so club timer meaningless.
    BOURREE was LOI: as we had a near pangram, was trying for -QU-R-E (doubted CABER, as not parsed) until I eventually saw it was hidden.
  21. About 25 minutes, having no prior acquaintance with COCKATRICE, BOURREE or CADENZA. As least as far as I can recall. LOI was SURGICAL SPIRIT, which, if I’m understanding this correctly, I think we call medicinal spirits over here. Regards.
  22. 10:57 for me. I was feeling so rough (with a filthy cold) that I debated whether I should leave this for another day, but thought “what the heck!” and went for it. Fortunately I seem to have been on the setter’s wavelength, and although I found myself nodding off a couple of times, I managed to struggle through.

    And so to bed (since an early night is clearly called for).

  23. Another late solving session for me, but a very enjoyable puzzle, and I am pleased with my completion time, given that some excellent solvers have taken a little longer than usual.
    Has anyone else said that it would be good to welcome sotira back to the U.K. If repatriation comes about?
    George Clements
  24. No one else seems to have mentioned this, so maybe I’m having a brain outage, but this clue doesn’t contain a definition of the answer, does it? In this respect it reminds me of a clue I’ve seen quoted for “Chicken in a Basket”, which makes no reference to food, only to cowards in air balloons
  25. You’re certainly right about the self-description, but (as a grad)(twice) I think we think of that as a somewhat more rigorous intellectual classification rather than as a more anodyne catchall. Ah well, to the setters their own desserts.

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