Times 25599 – A Hat-trick of Hard Ones

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

That is, counting Saturday and Sunday’s, which were both very chewy. Several unusual items of vocab in this one, and some canny cluing, took my time to 1’18”. While the NW put up the most resistance, my mistake was in the SW.

Across

1 BRAINPAN – I (one) in BRAN (refuse – noun) + PAN to give the first unusual (at least, for Limeys) item of vocab.
9 ABERRANT – very cunning, ‘out’ being the literal; R (king) + RAN in ABET.
10 EDGIER – LEDGER without the L (pounds down – we had ‘down’ for ‘off’ the other day) around I.
11 SOUNDPROOF – a double definition of sorts; some say one finds proofs only in logic, others in logic and pure mathematics. I stay out of it.
12 GNUS – my last in; just a DD (‘latest sounds’ translating to ‘sounds like “news”‘), even if I was looking for a word ending in S, where the S was taken from animalS.
13 FIANCHETTO – FIANCE[e] + an anagram* of OF THE to give another chess move, this time ‘the development of a bishop by moving it one square to a long diagonal of the board’ – whatever that means. I was envisaging someone in Dante’s third circle of Hell, but, alas, no.
16 GAMELAN – ME in GALA + [productio]N to give a Javanese/Balinese instrumental ensemble that makes a lot of noise.
17 COSTARD – COSTAR + [finishe]D to give a cooking apple which I’d forgotten.
20 BOTTLENECK – double definition; easy enough, but not for me, having been ground down by the others.
22 AIDE – smart this; it’s the middle letters of [m]AIDE[n].
23 LAY CLAIM TO – another cunning clue with a well hidden anagram of L[arge] + CALAMITY + O[ld], which leaves ‘bag’ as the literal.
25 WARDEN – first letter of W[illiam] + ARDEN (once a forest in the Heart of England – now mainly Birmingham); Collins for ‘warden’ has ‘3. a person employed to patrol a national park or safari park’ – before it becomes Legoland, presumably.
26 NEUTRINO – NEU (sounds like ‘new’) + TRI (ditto ‘tree’) + NO (ditto ‘know’) to give the naughty peeps who use two computers to record times of 1′ 50″ on the leader board, which is usually enough to beat Mark Goodliffe. Neither of the two dictionaries I consulted mentioned a lack of charge, but perhaps that follows of itself when you are ‘a neutral subatomic particle with a mass close to zero and half-integral spin, which rarely reacts with normal matter’. Substitute ‘people’ for ‘matter’ to get the cruciverbal variety.
27 NURSLING – RUN (work) reversed + SLING. Very nice.

Down

2 RED PANDA – NAP (sleep) in ADDER (snake) both reversed.
3 IRIDESCENT – indiscreet*.
4 PERSIFLAGE – quite the toughie this; it’s I (one) + FLAG (standard) in the PERSE School, Cambridge. The sort of thing those ‘flyting’ poets in late 15th century Scotland got up to, typically with aspersions about the other chap’s manhood. Medieval ‘sledging’, if you will.
5 NATURAL – a simple cryptic definition which held me up.
6 WELD – L[eft] in WED[nesday].
7 RAGOUT – AG in ROUT for a culinary creation I’ve heard of.
8 STAFFORD – O (no) + RD (way) on STAFF.
14 CLOCK TOWER – the literal is ‘high time here…?’ and the wordplay a cringeworthy ‘one pulls a face’, where TOWER must be taken as if it’s, say, a tug. Better not to explain further, I think.
15 EXTRAMURAL – another DD of sorts; ‘another painting’ is rather good.
16 GOBBLING – ‘taking fast food’ in the sense of taking one’s food [too] fast; GOB is British slang for mouth and BLING comes up most weeks now for the kind of stuff chavs wear.
18 RED QUEEN – an allusion to Alice through the Looking Glass.
19 NEW MOON – the literal is ‘start of the month for some’, as the Buddhist, Hebrew  Hindu and Muslim calendars start with the crescent moon, but not others, for example, the Chinese or the Gregorian calendar; it’s WOMEN* + ON (forward).
21 THYMUS – my wrong ‘un; it’s THY (your) + MUS[e] for the ‘lymphoid organ situated in the neck which becomes much smaller at the approach of puberty’; I had ‘thyrus’, with a truncated RUS[h] and a prayer.
24 ARID – A + RID[e]; finally, an easy one.

45 comments on “Times 25599 – A Hat-trick of Hard Ones”

  1. a typo (‘iridiscent’) (et tu, Ulaca, at least on the blog!) also an extra E in PERSIFLAGE); I’ve been doing that a lot lately, it seems, or worse, typing correctly but thinking sloppily. DNK FIANCHETTO or Perse, and didn’t parse BRAINPAN or NURSLING, so ta for those explanations. For some reason, I always think of persiflage in conjunction with badinage; somebody I once read must have used the combination.
  2. Then shut down the timer in dispair. Hardest Monday in a fair while. Or maybe it was just me being very sluggish today?

    In particular, PERSIFLAGE gave me a fair old bit of trouble, not being au fait with posh schools. (Mine will never appear in a crossword I suspect.)

    CLOCK TOWER was almost as hard to spot, but worth a laugh when sorted.

    Just re-read The Ambidextrous Universe, so the negative charge of the neutrino wasn’t a problem. Worth a look for the whole fiasco of the neutrino bomb hoax. And on the radio over the weekend, a bad joke about a neutron. One goes into a bar and asks how much a beer costs. The barman says ….

    Is 12ac (GNUS) a DD or just your common-or-garden homophone type?

    Edited at 2013-10-07 03:54 am (UTC)

  3. The extra E in PERSIFLAGE remains, ulaca.

    Yes, this was another disaster of a solve for me, though not a hat-trick as Sunday’s was without incident, if a bit on the slow side.

    I took 1hr 10min and eventually resorted to aids a couple of times to kick-start when I was completely stuck. I recognised BRAINPAN from another puzzle but only after I had found it by looking up BRAIN. I didn’t know FIANCHETTO, PERSE or NEUTRINO (other than having something to do with cheating at the on-line puzzle).

    I wonder if I was the only one to wreck my chances in the SE corner by putting LASS (hidden) at 22ac?

    Edited at 2013-10-07 05:42 am (UTC)

  4. It does seem to be something of a collocation, although perhaps not one of your garden variety collocations. I Googled it and got some thousands of hits (then again, try Googling something and not).
  5. 36m. This was tough but excellent, I thought. Lots of unknown words but the wordplay was almost always clear (if not easy) and the definitions were very well hidden. I did wonder about PERSIFLAGE, which is a very tough clue if you don’t know the word. Fortunately I did.
    Like Jack I slowed myself down by putting in LASS at 22ac.
  6. This was definitely another toughie, although I got there eventually.

    I knew Perse Scool from having played rugby against them ( for a definitely non-posh school!) and had vaguely heard of PERSIFLAGE.

    LOI was ARID where for a long while I had ASHY, until the penny dropped for NEUTRINO.

    Edited at 2013-10-07 07:23 am (UTC)

  7. A pretty tough 35 minutes. Not sure about ‘aside’ for ‘diagonally’ in 13. Though come to think of it the term indicates the bishop to N2, a move to the side. Fooled around with buttermesh for some reason for a while at 20, till the clock tower, an image that appeals, prevailed. Red Queen last in.
  8. 28:03.. chewy indeed. After 25 minutes I still had the connected PERSIFLAGE, FINACHETTO, CLOCK TOWER and EXTRAMURAL unsolved. Luckily, they fell like dominoes.

    COD … AIDE, small but perfectly formed.

  9. Like others I found this very tough and did not finish after 2 hours having ruined the SE corner by putting in ‘STROLLER’in at 27a in desperation.
    COD was 23c and laughed as I remembered schoolyard cries of “Bags, I get to be……”
  10. 28 minutes, so feeling pretty pleased, sort of. Those taking most time, and LTI
    GNUS: if only I’d thought Flanders and Swann, or even our own domestic persiflage.
    THYMUS: trying to work yr into it somewhere, not knowing the stuff about it disappearing in adults, gennerally being ignorant. Good clue, though.
    RED QUEEN: got fixed on having AN (one) at the end, cats being whips, red something being wine, especially in a glass. Basically, misled all over the place.
    Thank goodness I didn’t see the hidden LASS, even though I was looking for a “hidden” by this time. Fortunately, I already had a tentative EXTRA-something (CURRICULAR didn’t fit) for 15d.
    My unlocker for the bottom half was the excellent BOTTLENECK, and my unfair advantage for the day my missus’ attendance, in her youth, obviously, at the Perse Girls’ variety. I also remembered FIANCHETTO, but not what it was nor (without the wordplay to help) how to spell it. Fine puzzle, just a bit too interesting for a Monday.
    1. Retired last summer after teaching at The Perse School for 11 years. Good to see a posh school that wasn’t Eton for a change.
  11. Don’t think this is a homophone though perhaps should have got it anyway- but really- gnewspapers; gnoose; gnude; gnough.

    1. Pays yer money and takes yer choice. Macmillan has /nuː/ – which would equate in the plural to a translatlantic ‘news’ – while ODO hedges its bets with /(g)nuː/ and /(g)njuː/

      Not a lot of people gnew that…

      1. As far as I’m aware G-nu was invented by Michael Flanders in the 1950s. Before that the masses had never even heard of the beast so they adopted his mispronunciation and G-nu may subsequently have become legitimised through usage.
        1. I second that. The audience’s laugh when G-NU is first said indicates that the pronunciation is just a joke.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPgo6s1lBbw

          The OED gives a single pronunciation nu: (not nju) which (as ulaca says) suggests that the homophone is more likely to work in US English than in British English.

          Edited at 2013-10-07 10:24 pm (UTC)

  12. 22 mins, and I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who found this hard. This was definitely a puzzle in which close attention to the wordplay was required, and I enjoyed the challenge.

    At 1ac I was held up for a while because I felt sure that “refuse” was the definition. NURSLING took longer than it should have done because I am more aware of the “nurseling” spelling so I discounted it until I had all the checkers. CLOCK TOWER also took a while to see but it raised a smile when I got it, as did BOTTLENECK.

    Like I said a couple of weeks ago, chess terms aren’t my strong point, so FIANCHETTO, went in from the wordplay with fingers crossed. The only one that went in from definition alone was PERSIFLAGE because I didn’t know the school. ABERRANT was my LOI after NATURAL, although in retrospect neither of them should have taken as long as they did.

  13. Lost about 5min. as Chrome gave a load of errors for ‘play’, so had to get Firefox.
    1ac LOI – knew FIANCHETTO as I liked to play it occasionally, and knew of Perse School having gone to Cambridge (though don’t know its whereabouts).
    CLOCK TOWER is COD for sheer cheek!
  14. Thought this was harder than average and not just for a Monday. FIANCHETTO from wordplay, and surprise at finding GNU’s pronunciation not the one I’ve been using all these years, though I’ve had a lot more interaction with the operating system (G pronounced) than the wildebeest. COD to CLOCK TOWER.
  15. I am so glad to read all the other posts as for the last couple of days I have been convinced that I am losing the ability to solve the Times crossword. This one took me 23 minutes.

    PS: There’s still a typo in 20a the E and L in Bottleneck are the wrong way round! Mind you, if I had to solve this and then blog it, there would be more than just typos to worry about.

  16. 24 minutes, didn’t find it hard except last two in ABERRANT and (easy really) NATURAL, and couldn’t parse 4dn having been to the Other Place never heard of the school. I remembered A-G-nother G-nu from F & S but was unaware the G should be silent…
  17. 23/28 today with unknowns Brainpan, Persiflage and Fianchetto missing plus Natural and Aberrant. Very hard.
  18. Struggled a bit after golf in the mist but got home eventually in a steady 30 minutes. It so helps with these puzzles to have played bridge, cricket and chess so FIA….O was no problem but had to derive GAMELAN from wordplay. Wasn’t sure about the G-NUS but had a half memory that it should be said NEWS. Rather liked the clock puller.
  19. Not the usual Monday fare! I stared at this for ages, with only a few going in, and then Soundproof broke the log-jam for the top half. The rest followed, not a few grudgingly, leaving the SE corner to be unlocked by Extramural. Red Queen was my LOI.

    ClockTower a vaguely unsatisfactory clue, and I winced at the vulgarism in 16d.

    Oddly enough, given other comments, Persiflage and Fianchetto were among my first in, both of which I owe to time misspent in my college JCR aeons ago.

      1. Gob. Always disliked the word.

        Sorry this reply is so late. I’m not permanently hooked up to LiveJournal, and don’t usually go back over comments.

        1. Thought so.
          I have my LiveJournal set up so that I get an email whenever someone replies to one of my comments. I’m not sure how you do this mind: it seems to have been set like that automatically for me.
  20. The thymus is mostly in the chest (the OED medical expert clearly wasn’t a thoracic surgeon), it is present in all adults, though in most it is atrophied, and is sometimes removed to treat myasthenia gravis and thymic cancers.

  21. Tried my hardest today, but still ended up with having 5 missing, despite returning to it a couple of times.

    My goddaughter studies at Perse, so managed 4dn, but didn’t get: BRAINPAN, FIANCHETTO, COSTARD (all unknowns), EXTRAMURAL or NATURAL.

    1. Loved this puzzle, it took ages. I wish we could have them more like this all week.
  22. Ouch! About 45 minutes and had to look up PERSIFLAGE at the end. To tell the truth, the word did not ring even a vague bell, so I couldn’t get it from the definition, and certainly not the wordplay either, with the school being outside my range of knowledge, by a long way. I did get everything else, which I consider a good enough showing for a very tricky puzzle. Do I take the comments above to indicate that in the UK you pronounce the wildebeest as ‘guh new’? Really? To my ear the GNUS and news are exact homophones, and that was the clue that made me smile amidst the head-scratching. Thanks to the setter and Ulaca as well, and regards to all.
    1. I’ve always pronounced it “guh noo” rather than “guh new” hence I still wouldn’t have had it rhyming with new even if I’d taken the g off.
      1. I’d aways thought “noo” was transatlantic (see above) until I met a chap from Nottingham who de-yodded it with the best of them. He was a linguist and assured me it was common in several English dialects.
      2. I think this is a case of two countries divided by a common language, as Kevin, being a New Yorker (or at least living there now, being an American) pronounces the non-g bit the same way as you!
  23. Well beyond me and so rather frustrating – quite a few unknowns and some obscurities as well so after a disaster on Saturday back to the Sudoku I think. Many thanks for the blog which really cleared up things but of course also emphasised my ignorance!
  24. A disappointing 14:56 for me. I just couldn’t seem to find the setter’s wavelength, perhaps because I was expecting something rather easier on a Monday. No complaints though – an interesting and enjoyable puzzle.
  25. Challenging, ipso facto enjoyable. Saturday was a beast, got absolutely nowhere, despite rampant cheating. Why do people expect Monday to be easy?
    1. There’s a theory bandied about that certain days of the week are easier than others but this is strongly denied by those in the know and it’s asserted that there is no editorial policy to this effect. It has to be said however that experience in recent years may well lead one to think that Mondays are at the easier end of the scale probably more often than not.

      Edited at 2013-10-07 11:07 pm (UTC)

    2. Well, this was my 31st Monday puzzle and among the two or three hardest – and it’s not even that hard. So, there is some evidence, given that I do them every day of the week, and typically find other days harder, that Mon is indeed on average easier.

      The Guardian is kind of graded, so that it gets harder as the week goes by. Certainly, for most people, Rufus’s Monday is a gentle pipe-opener.

      Edited at 2013-10-08 02:22 am (UTC)

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