Times 25597 – Wrong side of the blanket

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Around 40 minutes for this fairly straightforward puzzle. The answers in the top half almost wrote themselves in but I lost time further down, particularly in the SW corner. I suspect we shall see some fast times and I note there are already three genuine solves under 10 minutes on the leader board and one of these is under 5! I imagine it would be a different tale if multi-word enumerations were omitted as they were particularly helpful today

 * = anagram, dd = double definition

Across

1 BLOW-BY-BLOW – BLOW (shock), BY-BLOW (bastard). Two rather unpleasant terms to get us under way.
6 SMUG – Smack, MUG (face)
9 FLEUR-DE-LIS – (DUELLERS IF)*  A “charge” can be a design in heraldry apparently. News to me but the answer was obvious apart from the less common spelling, LIS instead of LYS.
10 ODES – ODESsa (Ukrainian port). The SA for removal is clued by “appeal” as in “Sex Appeal”
12 NORMAN MAILER – NORMAN (William the Conqueror), MAILER (poster), the Ameriacn author
15 HORSEBACK – “Murder” backwards gives us “Red Rum”
17 TWAIN – This refers to “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain another American author
18 MOIST – MOIS (French for month, so “a few weeks in Bordeaux”), T (time)
129 AD NAUSEAM – Translation from Latin
20 REGIME CHANGE – REGIME ( government), CHANGE (little money)
24 CROP – dd
25 SINGLE FILE – a comma in the definition makes sense of it “progress so, narrowly”
26 LIFT – dd
27 STREETWISE – (WIRE TSETSE)*

Down

1 BUFF – BUFFo (comic role).  On edit, thanks to Derek for pointing out there’s a double definition here too that I overlooked. In addition to buff = polish there’s buff = expert, as in “he’s an opera buff”. This seems to be an American usage (something to do with the colour of uniform worn by New York firemen) but I was well aware of it.
2 OWEN – 0 (nothing), NEW (recent, reversed)
3 BORROWED TIME – BORROWED (the reciprocal of lent), TIME (weeks)
4 BREAM – B (British), REAM (paper)
5 ONION-SKIN – ONIONS (what experts know), KIN (related)
7 MIDDLE-AGED – From the expression “middle-aged spread”
8 GASTRONOMY – (GOT MASONRY)*
11 LAST JUDGMENT – LAST (final), JUDGMENT (decision) refers to the painting by Michaelangelo
13 CHIMERICAL aMERICA (New World country) inside CHILe (another)
14 CRYING WOLF – CRYING (miserable), WOLF (Don Juan)
16 ANARCHIST – C (caught – cricket), (RAIN HATS)*
21 ANGLE tANGLE (seaweed)
22 WI-FI – WI-Fe (old woman) with a second I substituted for the E
23 METE – Sounds like “meat” (main course)

44 comments on “Times 25597 – Wrong side of the blanket”

  1. I have one error, ‘middle ages’. Naturally, this was my best time in ages.Anyway, I liked 27ac, my LOI. Thanks for explaining HORSEBACK, which I got from checkers and definition; I’d forgotten about Red Rum, even though he was in a very recent cryptic. Jack, it’s JUDGMENT (‘judgement’ won’t fit).
  2. A similar experience to Jack, though I’d never heard of BY-BLOW. Doesn’t quite fit – can’t imagine being abused by an Aussie as a Pommie by-blow. Thanks to Jack too for explaining the Red Rum reference. Had ‘cane’ at 24 before CRYING WOLF went in.

    Never read Mailer, but am currently wading through volume 1 of a new ‘autobiography’ of Twain. He wrote a lot about money in his private correspondence…

  3. So not among the speed merchants today (as if ever). But at least no parsings on the printed sheet for a change. The only thing I didn’t know was “charge” in the heraldic sense (9ac). “Finnish” (17ac) had me going for a while. Should have been quicker.
  4. Not so difficult, although a lot went in on definition alone.

    I took BUFF as a double definition + cryptic.

    I didn’t know the bastard in 1ac, but recognised the second one in 12ac.

    Edited at 2013-10-04 05:58 am (UTC)


  5. All went in correctly, but a lot on def alone (as usual…. *sigh*…).

    Didn’t get the Red Rum ref, or the Finnish one, and have not come across BY-BLOW. CHIMERICAL took an age to get, but then the last few in the SW fell into place.

  6. 25:21 .. well, I didn’t find it straightforward. Glancing at the top of the leader board is a humbling experience.

    CHIMERICAL and REGIME CHANGE took ages to click.

  7. Slid in under 14 minutes, despite the setter’s creative definitions: ‘murder’, ‘Finnish’, charge, and the hidden-in-plain-sight ‘fly’ among the best. By-blow from the murky depths.
    CoD to MOIST for engaging cheerfulness.
    Thanks to all for generous comments on yesterday’s debut.
  8. Same as bigtone. I’ve never come across by-blow before so solved from checkers

    Some of this is very weak – 19A for example. We are overdue a testing puzzle.

    1. The anagram puts wire and tsetse together before ‘bashing’ them. ‘Fly’ is a rather good synonym for streetwise. You have to keep tsetse and fly separate.
    2. The definition is “fly” defined in SOED as :

      Knowing, sharp, wide awake. E19. as in the examples, “He was too fly to let anyone pin so much as a charity flag on him” and “Are you fly to what’s going on?”

      The rest of the clue is an anagram as blogged.

      Edited at 2013-10-04 08:21 am (UTC)

  9. 19m, so about average for me in spite of feeling very sluggish this morning.
    I didn’t have a clue about 1ac, and it didn’t even occur to me that “by-blow” might be a term meaning “bastard”. Charge also unknown.
  10. 16 mins, although in retrospect I should have been quicker.

    I initially entered “algae” as my LOI at 21dn before realising it couldn’t be parsed so I thought about it again, the penny dropped, and I changed it to the correct ANGLE.

    I agree with z8 that some of the definitions were pretty good, and I also agree with Jimbo about the clue for AD NAUSEAM. If you know the expression it is a write-in, and if you don’t there’s no other way to get to the answer.

  11. I turned out to be familiar with some of the more obscure elements (BY-BLOW), but not with others (“charges”); and having felt briefly brilliant at spotting immediately where 15ac was going, quickly returned to normal by confidently writing in RACEHORSE. Given that all this added up to a sub-10 minute time, however, there clearly wasn’t anything which I found a real stumbling block.
  12. 17 minutes, best of the week, parsed all except 1ac, loved HORSEBACK. Some very easy clues (12ac, 19ac,) made the harder ones easier too.
    1. Yes, I would have given it a special mention but for the same device being used in the Times as recently as 4 September: Making comeback, wipe the floor with famous runner (3,3).
  13. 15:18 with quite a considerable amount of that taken up by staring at the SW corner, not helped by putting in CHIMERICAL and then changing my mind, taking it out again and…
  14. Technology pedantry alert: WiFi does not give you internet access. It is a short range wireless network which connects you to a device (usually called a router) that gives you internet access using another technology loosely referred to as Broadband. Sorry about that but I am sure the arty-farty types would pick up on labeling Charles Dickens as a poet, which is the equivalent type of mistake.

    Chris

    1. Many places advertise ‘free wi-fi’ when they mean free internet access. Maybe not technically correct, but this usage made the definition ok for me.
    2. Given that access to wifi gives you access to the internet, I don’t think it’s actually too much of a stretch to define it as such.

      A nice puzzle I thought.

      1. I’m sorry but access to wifi does not necessarily give you internet access. It is perfectly possible to have a wifi network where you just interact with other local computers with no access to the internet at all. Equally it is perfectly possible to have internet access with no wifi involved at all. The terms wifi and internet access are not synonymous under any circumstances. As I said, if a clue for the Times xword defined Dickens as a poet, simply because he was vaguely connected to literature, you can imagine the wailing and howling that would go on!

        Chris

        1. Collins defines Wi-Fi as:

          A system of accessing the internet from remote machines such as laptop computers that have wireless connections.

          So the setter is completely justified. Any complaints should be sent to the dictionary compilers.

          1. I didn’t look it up, so thanks for that. I am afraid that definition is quite simply wrong with no possibility of a grey area. I will write to Collins, but don’t suppose it will get me anywhere.

            Chris

            1. This is an instance where the language has appropriated technical vocabulary and made it its own. When I see “free wifi” advertised, I know that this means free connection to the Internet. It may be technically inaccurate but in linguistic terms it cannot be called “wrong”. There’s no such thing.
          2. Yes, the dictionary compilers do deserve some complaints on this. When our basement was flooded two years ago I moved my network printer to a dry room upstairs, far away from the router connected to the DSL access point in the basement. To be able to use the printer I connected it to an old router I had and printed by wi-fi, but for two years while renovations were going on I was constantly annoyed by not having simultaneous access to the internet and the printer with many undesirable side effects.
        2. “I’m sorry but access to wifi does not necessarily give you internet access.”

          Of course not, but that doesn’t mean that wifi is not a means of internet access

  15. justinwestcork made a good point about the plethora of notices advertising “free wi-fi” when what is meant is free internet access. The meaning of words can change in many different ways, and mistaken usage, while annoying to purists, is just one of these. Why should scientific or technological terminology be exempt from this? I can imagine Jimbo steaming at that last sentence ……………….
  16. Made rapid progress through the top half but couldn’t make any headway in the SE and most of the SW corners despite putting the puzzle to one side and revisiting it a few times.
    Had to turn to Onelook.com with eight remaining and then the missing answers came straightaway (eg Regime Change, Last Judgment, Angle, Mete…).
    FOI Owen, LOI Streetwise.
    Hats off to Magoo. His time of 3m 11s is out of this world!
  17. Not easy for me, about 35 minutes, held up in the SW, where I finally finished with CROP. Never heard of BY-BLOW, and didn’t twig onto the Finnish aspect of 17A, or the Lent=borrowed trick, but I did parse all the others. But none too quickly, though. Glad to be all correct today. Regards.
  18. A quick time for me, but not a puzzle I enjoyed. A handful of very good clues, such as 17a and 27a, but some poor ones too, such as 18a (requiring a knowledge of French, albeit basic) and 19a, which has been mentioned already.
    I read Norman Mailer many years ago, but am not anxious to repeat the experience. I suppose that, like the meaning of words, tastes change.
    George Clements
    1. I’d wager that the number of solvers of this puzzle who know that “mois” means “month” will significantly outnumber those who have a clue what a “by-blow” might be!
  19. 8:04 for me, but I felt a bit dozy and kept missing easy clues first time through – like 4dn (BREAM). And I wasted far too much time trying to fit MAI into 18ac (MOIST). A nice straightforward, Mondayish sort of puzzle though.
  20. Similar experience to jackkt – the top practically wrote itself in. 19 was a ridiculous “quick crossword” sort of clue, leaving me thinking: that can’t be the answer, surely? Otherwise nothing really stands out.

    This may be over pedantic, but at 5, experts don’t know “onions”, they know “their onions”. Inelegant clueing.

    As tony sever points out, yet another “Monday” crossword.

  21. Was very pleased to have discovered WAKAME – a type of seaweed and AKAME a type of fish to give the answer – imagine how disappointed I am to find, it is not the answer!

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