Times 25590: Hmmmm…

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : Hit submit after 16:44 and was greeted with the “1 incorrect” message. I had a peek through it and I don’t see any typos straight off so I might be missing something. I’ve been accused of that often. Edit found it while writing this up

I think this is on the trickier side – I’m a little out of practice at the moment with a schedule that hasn’t left much room for solving (I have been doing a few clues at a time in breaks) and I found the tricks weren’t coming to me as quickly as usual. Throw in an odd word or two and it could be a head-scratching day for some. I’m only the second time on the board at the moment.

Away we go…

Across
1 CHRISTMAS: anagram of ITS in anagram of MARCH, then S(son)
6 MIMI,C: Reference to La Boheme
9 ORGAN(brain),ON
10 ARCADIA C in A, RADIA(l)
11 TULIP: TIP around U(nusua)L
12 BARNACLED: Chemistry visit #1 – NaCl (salt) in BARED
14 KEY: crafty double definition – “A Major” and explanation as in “answer key”
15 PENULTIMATE: M(minute) in (AN,ELITE,PUT)*
17 COT,(v)ERMINOUS: I liked “buggy” for VERMINOUS – fiendish clue for a tricky word
19 FRY: referencing Christopher FRY (playwright) and Elizabeth FRY (reformer)
20 STARLIGHT: TAR in SLIGHT
22 ICONS: CON(conservative party) in I’S – here’s my mistake, silly me wrote in IDOLS without thinking Note – after reading the comments I think we should nominate this crossword to some Hall of Fame for catching lazy solvers
24 ALL EARS: ALS(o) with LEAR inside
26 URANIUM: symbol is U (sounds like “you”) Chemistry visit #2
27 TORT,E: Those food additive numbers are called E numbers in the UK – they have a different name here
28 TABLEWARE: this is a tricksy one too – TA(army),BLEW(left),A,RE(specialised unit)
 
Down
1 C,LOUT
2 REGALLY: G in REALLY
3 SANDPAPER: I am not sure of the second part – I remember using blotter paper, could sandpaper be used that way too? Commenters to the rescue informing me that you could put sand on the paper to dry ink. Mmmmm, inky sand
4 MIND-BENDING: double def
5 SEA(m)
6 MECCA(no)
7 MEDULLA: I’m calling whirledploy on this, I don’t think this sounds much like ME DULLER There’s a lot of conversation about this in the comments, but my complaint is the “duller” part of it – in Australia and the US it is pronounced DEW-LA and I just can’t imagine it being pronounced “duller”. Can I run Chambers through Jaws?
8 CHANDLERY: HANDLE in CRY
13 RULE OF THUMB: reference Tom Thumb
14 KICK START: or KICKS over TART
16 INSTIGATE: (EATING,IT’S)*
18 TRAILER: double def
19 FLORIDA: RID in FLOA(t)
21 (jai)L,EASE
23 SOMME: M inside SOME
25 SET: double definition

49 comments on “Times 25590: Hmmmm…”

  2. About 35 mins for me but I made the same mistake as you and put in IDOLS on checkers and definition without thinking about it too much.
  3. (Or should that be sunlight?) Yeh … put me on the list as well. And I was trying not to enter answers without being sure of the parsing after Jim’s remarks about “repeatedly” for “dejectedly” just the other day.

    Talking of whom … there’s a fair smattering of science in here today — especially if we include Aristotelian logic (9ac) — with only Chris and Liz to spoil the show.

    Edited at 2013-09-26 02:12 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, you would have thought the setter might consider the Quaker Joseph Fry but I can’t think of a female Fry that might count as a scientist
  4. Put me down for IDOLS too. I put it in without checkers and subject to a mental question mark, but when the checkers fell into place I didn’t bother to revisit it.

    I took 7 down to be ME + DULLA, ie ME being given and only the DULLA bit being the homophone.

    Thanks George for parsing 28!

    Edited at 2013-09-26 09:49 am (UTC)

  5. I mean, majority rule and all that, no? I did wonder what the L was doing; but instead of acting on that, I just flung it in. Couldn’t get away from party=do. A 16:08 time, too; 3 days in a row under 30′.
    Didn’t know about Pamela; the one thing I remember about Sidney is that he said, “Now for the poet, he nothing affirmeth, therefore never lieth.” Had no idea as to the parsing of COTERMINOUS & TABLEWARE, and was lucky I didn’t need to given the definitions; thanks, George, for enlightening me.

    Edited at 2013-09-26 04:06 am (UTC)

  6. 37 minutes and another ‘idols’. Thought about it but just couldn’t see it. Has been known to happen before…

    Not as tricky as it perhaps ought to have been, this one, as quite a few were handed to you by the literals and a couple of checkers, e.g. COTERMINOUS.

    If anyone’s a fan of chivalric romances, then Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (old or new) is worth a look. At a pinch, one might call it a kind of prose Faerie Queene. Perhaps Sidney’s biggest claim to fame is inventing the girl’s name Pamela.

  7. for jackkt – didn’t get tulip either – just looked, and Wikipedia says

    Tulip mania or tulipomania was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the recently introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed.

    Last week of baseball regular season, so late night games affecting crossword solving, but got there in the end. So well chuffed (after some recent shortfalls) to be on the setter’s wavelength.

    Lab, Lib, CON, do, Green, Dem, Rep – soz to the idols fans, but was my first penned in, but will readily admit – so I don’t seem to be diss’ing any of you – to having put picniC HAMPer instead of CRAMP for 6A yesterday.

    17 my last one in, with the checking letters I arrived at buggy = germy = germinous, so arrived at the correct conclusion, but having seen George’s parsing, and consulted the oracle, the adjective is germinal, so my thanks to George for remedial therapy.
    Conversely there is no verminal – oh the joys of the English language!

    1. If we use it often enough, there will be;, that’s the greater joy of the English language. Anyway, wasn’t it considered for one of those French months?
  8. Another “idols” here too. Couldn’t parse TABLEWARE either, didn’t understand SANDPAPER or what TULIP was about (still don’t), never heard of COTERMINOUS or ORGANON so I resolved not to worry about any of it. I’d have made more of an effort on a blogging day. Only just crept in under the hour.
    1. Tulipmania was when they had a ‘run’ on tulips of all things in the seventeenth century. You can guess where. The bubble didn’t take long to burst.
  9. If you (for which read I) put in IDOLS first, no matter how much that L worries you, you’re going to leave it there and let the blogger sort it out. Dam’ – spoilt a decent puzzle.
  10. I think that IDOLS can equally count as being the correct answer here, since I am quite sure the when we all put DOL in for party, we were all thinking of the famous Dol or 1st birthday parties which are all the rage in S.Korea at the moment [more shades of Captain Mainwaring!].
    Either that or put me in the corner with everyone else!
  12. In the televised I CLAUDIUS, the emperor Augustus (Brian Blessed) demanded of a large group of senators “Is there anyone in this room who has not slept with my daughter?”. If Robert Graves was writing now, he would have written ‘Is there anyone on this site who did not write in IDOLS?’

    (later – well done keriothe)

    Edited at 2013-09-26 08:12 am (UTC)

  13. Well, I got ICONS with absolutely no problem and never even considered “idols” – it might have something to do with reading the clue!

    George, at 7D I agree with derek that it’s the “dulla” bit that is said to sound like “duller”

    A very enjoyable puzzle with a smattering of good clues – I particularly liked ORGANON. The Tulip Bubble is quite well known as an example of the genre and was an unusual definition. 20 minutes of fun – thank you setter.

    1. I meant that the DULLA part doesn’t sound at all like duller even taking into account all my hybrid accents. In Australia and the US it is pronunced like DEW-LA
      1. I didn’t realise that George. It’s outside my field of expertise but I would pronounce it “duller” and wouldn’t recognise “dewla”. Just goes to show how difficult it is to get these homophones acceptable to all – as a setter I would avoid them, particularly in an international puzzle like this one.
      2. George, are you serious? dulla, pronounced dewla?

        Why?! I have become accustomed to frequent homophone complaints, but I am starting to fret. i suppose if you go somewhere foreign enough every word is pronounced in a peculiar manner 🙂

      3. According to Websters (US) and Macquarie (AUS) dictionaries, the (ME)DULLA = DULLER homophone works in both countries.

        Edited at 2013-09-27 06:09 am (UTC)

  14. 17m, and I managed (just) to resist the urge to bung in IDOLS. I can’t remember a clue catching so many people out. I’m not feeling smug, honest.
    I didn’t know ORGANON, or understand the second SANDPAPER reference. I was puzzled by COTERMINOUS because I don’t really think of bugs as vermin, but according to Chambers they count.

  15. Followed the crowd with IDOLS, but a very enjoyable 20 minutes nonetheless. It’s one of those days when reading the 1 Error Leader Board is quite reassuring.

    As jimbo points out, sometimes reading the clue might be a sensible idea. I’m going to give it a try tomorrow.

  16. 15 mins. I initially wrote in “idols” but I wasn’t happy with the lack of explanation for the “l” and changed it to ICONS after a little more thought. I’ve made too many avoidable mistakes recently.

    I agree with dereklam and Jimbo’s parsing of 7dn.

    I thought there were too many good clues to pick out any individual ones. TULIP was my FOI and the “cause of mania once” definition didn’t give me pause for thought because I knew the historical context. The previously unknown ORGANON was my LOI after I decided to trust the wordplay.

  17. Same as everyone – couldn’t see where the L came from, but didn’t go back to have another think before submitting.
    LOI was 12 – spent a few minutes trying AB, TAR, or even OS for ‘salt’. but penny dropped as soon as I thought of the word to fit the checkers
  18. Good puzzle, with some ingeniously tricky wordplay. But, alas, put me in the dunce’s corner with the other IDOLS.
  19. Exactly 35 minutes for this clever puzzle with lots of d’oh moments as the pennies dropped.

    Putting SAND on PAPER, as the way to dry ink once, is how I saw the wordplay in 3.

  20. Yep, me too for ‘idols’, but I guess I’m alone in having the made-up ‘coterainous’. Thanks for parsing FLORIDA. DNK: ORGANON or TULIPmania.

    Janie

  21. What a good puzzle! I went for ICONS after much deliberation because I couldn’t think where the L came from in IDOLS, although I thought IDOLS was a better synonym of the definition.
  23. A bit over 45 minutes today. I’m amazed at the number of IDOLS. It was the first answer that came to my mind, but it clearly failed to fit the wordplay, so I gave it some further thought.
    There were several clues to which I didn’t see the wordplay: 6ac, 10 and 28. I guessed at ARCADIA as soon as I read the clue, but I didn’t see RADIA(l) and I couldn’t see anything that could be “maximum speed”. If C = 100(mph), since when has that been legal in the UK? Or am I missing something else?
    2. I recall that in the 1940s, George Gamow wrote a little book about Mr. Tompkins, who discovered, amongst other things, what everyday life would be like if the speed of light was 30 mph. Russell Stannard recently updated the book and published it as The New World of Mr. Tompkins. Although it was originally intended for young people, a good many oldies have appreciated being able to get an idea of what physicists are talking about when they go on about quarks, relativity and quantum theory.
  24. I sympathise with all my fellow idol-aters. An icon is a picture and I hate it when TV reporters describe every damn thing as ‘iconic’.

    Edited at 2013-09-26 01:49 pm (UTC)

      1. That’s the most familiar modern application, but it (and the form ‘iconic’) has wider applications, all of them involving pictorial representation. If the clue had been ‘objects one reveres’, that would be the religious ones; but if it’s ‘people’, well, very few can be called an ‘icon’.

        Edited at 2013-09-26 05:34 pm (UTC)

  25. I also put in IDOLS, realised it couldn’t possibly be right, but forgot to revisit it!
    My bet is that this wasn’t a deliberate attempt to deceive, but who knows …
  26. About 30 minutes, no problem here with ICONS. But I had problems with the following: What’s a meccano? What’s the NAAFI? E as number of additives? DULLA? George is correct that we say ‘dew-la’ over here. ORGANON? Verminous? I didn’t see that. So with all this other head scratching going on, perhaps I was being more analytical than most others, so I wasn’t tempted by ‘idols’. Despite those problems my LOI was actually SOMME, perhaps a bit gruesome, but nonetheless a very good clue. Regards to all.
    1. Meccano is a long-standing children’s construction toy where metal strips and other bits are bolted together to make working toys. NAAFI (Naval Army and Air Force Institute) provides entertainment etc to the UK armed forces but is typically the canteen, hence the tables
    2. My parents used to describe a person of less than usual intelligence as being “as dim as a NAAFI candle”.

      I think the expression must have been WW2 forces slang.

    3. Hi Kevin

      E Numbers are EU codes for chemicals that can be used as additives so for example E700 to E799 are all antibiotics

  27. Two missing today: Key and Kick Start.
    George, thanks for explaining Coterminous. I got that from the definition.
    Time to go home…
  28. Looked at idols, thought again, got icons. Had to do this one in bits and pieces and the trickier ones took their time at the end but none stared back for too long. As for medulla, the UK RP version seems natural enough for a UK conservative newspaper. The spelling and apparent Latin origin might suggest it also. Quite a sharp set of clues.
  29. A disappointing 14:49 here, which I’m going to put down to still feeling very much under par with my cold.

    Fortunately it only took me a second or so to dismiss IDOLS in favour of ICONS. I’m amazed how many people fell for this, including some very illustrious solvers. And I’ve never heard MEDULLA pronounced as if it was MEDULA (cf MEDUSA), so that went straight in as well.

    On the other hand it took me a ridiculously long time to parse COTERMINOUS, despite being familiar with this use of “obscuring”.

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