Times 25,612

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
23:37 on the club timer. Pretty tricky, this one, for me at any rate; I got off to a fast start with the easy ones, came almost to a standstill, then re-engaged brain and knocked off the harder ones fairly steadily, if not especially swiftly. When I come to explain the answers that gave me most trouble, however, they seem very straightforward, so this was clearly a deceptively tough puzzle, with lots of surface misdirection. Not flashy, but effective.

Congratulations / commiserations to anyone else from these parts who took part on Saturday, depending on whether you did better or worse than you were expecting. Doing the first preliminary, I never really got out of second gear, and finished 17th, but I at least reached my target of a) submitting all correct inside the hour and b) as a result, not needing to qualify or pay for next year, so I really mustn’t grumble. Sadly, the organisers haven’t taken up the suggestion that they might offer name tags for those who are happy to be identified, and I once more failed to follow the example of Tony S. in making my own – thus he was the only competitor I was able to say hello to (though again I shoulder much of the blame by only ever using avatars which don’t give anyone else much chance of identifying me – in real life I don’t look anything like Arthur Lowe, and even less like a pint of beer).

Across
1 SPIRIT – double def., Ariel being the spirit who serves Prospero in The Tempest.
5 BEBOPPER – BE(=”live”), PP in BOER.
9 BELGRADE – EL in B GRADE, with a nice lift-and-separate.
10 ENNEAD “ANY AD”. A group of nine people or things.
11 PARLIAMENT – P.A. (TERMINAL)*.
13 ARTY – PARTY.
14 PEER – double def.
15 RITUALISTS – (TRIALSUITS)*; I thought this was going to be a more obscure religious term, but it’s just a more general word which can describe, amongst others, those who are fond of “smells and bells”.
18 ITINERANCY – ITALIAN, E.R. in [1 NANCY], via another lift-and-separate. I’d say that while the adjective “itinerant” is commonplace, the noun is less so.
20 USER – USURER minus the archetypal old city UR.
21 SCAR – SMALL CAR.
23 FORGE AHEAD – i.e. FORGE(=”make”) A HEAD(=”a loaf”).
25 ABLOOM – LILAC in A BOOM.
26 MARINADE – AIRFIELD in MARINE(=”jolly”). This is the old naval meaning – it seems the “jolly boat” came first, and hence the troops who were landed in these boats became known as “jollies”.
28 BASSINET – BASS(=”one who sings”) IN ELEGANT.
29 DRYISH – RAILWAY in DISH.
 
Down
2 PREVALENT – PRE(=”before”), NOTE in VALET. I went all round the houses with this, convinced that RE was the note, trying to have PAGE go round the outside, and fit OTT in somewhere. A perfect example of how this puzzle looks quite obvious now I unpick it, but really wasn’t when I was solving it…
3 REGULAR – (R.A. LUGER)rev. While I had the R at the start but not the one at the end, I kept trying to come up with a RAG____ word, obviously without success.
4 TEA – ENGAGED in TA(=”cheers”).
5 BREVE – expansion of the normal “dropped h” convention; if you mispronounce the end of “breathe”, i.e. (“draw breath”) in Crossword Cockney fashion, you get “BREVE”.
6 BREATHALYSE – (HEBARELYSAT)*. “Cause to expire” as in “Would you mind blowing into this bag, please, sir”.
7 PUNJABI – JAB(=”shot”) in P, UNIVERSITY.
8 ENACT – N/A in EUROPEAN COURT.
12 AIRCRAFTMAN – which means much the same if you take out the CRAFT and leave just AIRMAN.
16 TON =”TUN”. I think the structure of the clue makes it pretty clear that “tun” is the “soundalike” and “ton” is the required answer, though “ton” is then defined by “heavyweight” rather than “heavy weight”, which made me stop and think twice about it…
17 THEM AND US – MAN, DEMOCRAT in THE U.S.
19 NERVOUS – (OVER)* in NORTH U.S.
20 UNHANDY – (NU)rev. + SHANDY minus the SON.
22 COBRA – reverse hidden in rhubARB OCcasionally.
24 REMIT – (TIMER)rev.
27 ROD – double def.

33 comments on “Times 25,612”

  1. 25 minutes for a steady unspectacular solve moving top to bottom, left to right. No real hold ups, problems or queries. A reasonably standard Times offering really.
  2. Thanks, Tim for a very helpful blog. I realised ENNEAD was a homophone but didn’t know the word and wasn’t sure of the spelling: a fortunate guess in the end. Particular thanks for the full explanation of MARINADE and AIRCRAFTMAN.
  3. Considerably speeded by having done the Grand Final #1 at 6:00am-ish. (Thanks to Tim for posting the address yesterday.) All the trouble in the NW where the Serbian Luger got me in the end. I thought the “at home” for (implied “in”) THE US at 17dn was clever.

    A confident setter: with only 3 question marks to his/her name. And the devious 26ac didn’t really need one.

  4. 32 mins and I struggled to get on the setter’s wavelength, particularly in the SE.

    As Tim said, once the answers are in you wonder what all the fuss was about, and PREVALENT is a prime example of that. I didn’t parse it until after I had completed the grid, and I could have kicked myself when I final saw “pre” as “before going over the top”. I didn’t do myself any favours by taking far too long over USER, and UNHANDY was my LOI.

  5. Steady solve in five minute bursts.
    Came up two letters short with E?n?ad missing. Didn’t know the word and would have guessed Ennyad.
  6. 29:25 .. I made heavy weather of this and still had a couple unparsed when I stopped the clock to duck under 30 minutes.

    In fact, I needed to sleep on it before I could understand PREVALENT. Now I see it, I think it’s a pretty stupendous clue. The surface is top drawer, and rather poignant, while the level of deception is positively Machiavellian. I’m not sure clues get much better than that.

  7. A similar tale here and I was quite surprised to find only 40 minutes had passed when I completed the grid. I felt I was stuck for ever after a completing around the edges fairly quickly. I really struggled with the long anagrams.

    Can someone please put up a link to the pdf of Grand Final Puzzle No 2 as I have have wasted far too long trying to find it?

  8. Ground it out, being held up by the SE corner.. Never heard of UNHANDY but it had to be. Was convinced ‘at home’ in 17D had to be IN. Also scribbled in PREVALENT without understanding why so thanks Tim for the explanation
  9. It’s a staple of the NY Times puzzles, usually with a reference to the muses. 19.39 for me.

    Sorry not to say hello on Saturday morning Tim – couldn’t tell which was you. I breezed through the first prelim and then folded. Did the finals on the plane back to NY – sheesh. The second one seems to have tripped up a lot of people including Jason. There’s still one clue I just cannot get no matter what. I’m pretty sure someone will put it up on the Club site soon and I’m hoping for enlightenment.

      1. That was in Final #3 and I got it – in the end. The one I couldn’t see was 12d in the 2nd Final – for the very good reason that I had “getter” instead of the correct word in 11a, so I had the wrong initial letter. It’s so obvious when you know! In #2 it seems to have been the statesman that people fell foul of, because of the spelling or for other reasons.
  10. Enjoyed this one.. quality product.
    Though I wasn’t keen on 27dn, just a single definition twice, really..
  11. 16:35 with a (fortunately correct) guess at ENNEAD.

    wavelength good in parts but in others definitely missing.

  12. 12m. I seem to have been mostly on the setter’s wavelength for this one, but unfortunately I didn’t know the word in 10ac. It was however immediately obvious that there was nothing in the clue to tell me which of the two possible options was the right one so I didn’t waste any time guessing ENNIAD over ENNYAD.
    Sorry to have missed you and almost everyone else at the finals Tim. I was the person who ran in breathless with about a minute to spare and then I had leave sharpish at the end to avoid a parking fine. I finished 16th, which is quite good, but with three errors, which isn’t.

  14. A lucky guess for me too with ENNEAD, but I had two left after I threw the towel in (at well over an hour): PREVALENT and BELGRADE.

    Thanks for working those two out, and explaining how REGULAR worked. All others went in slowly, but at least with FU of the cryptics.

  15. No problem with ENNEAD – some interest in etymology gives ‘ennea’ => 9, and a Y is impossible.
    Agree with Jerry that 27dn is very poor.
    LOI 14, after eventually seeing how 2dn works: an excellent clue.
  16. Similar experience to Topicaltim’s. I found this pretty tough, but after completion couldn’t see why some of the clues that took longest to crack had caused me so much trouble. I think it has to be down to a lot of misdirection in clever surface reads. Thanks to Tim for explaining how REGULAR works. I agree that 27d (ROD) is very feeble – a double def (if that’s all it is) more befitting the Concise than the Cryptic.
  17. I put a lot of answers in from the definition without considering the wordplay though it all seemed to check out in the end. Didn’t time it but it felt pretty quick so i had a stab at the tournament final #1 (16 minutes). In the end my only one-shoulder shrug was BREVE where I knew the note. It is also a style of ocffee but I don’t know if that is in Collins (it isn’t).
  18. Can’t see what the fuss is about 27. Okay, it’s a dd with both meanings much the same but it has a nice little surface reading leading one to think of something else and that redeems it in my view. Every clue can’t always be a gem.

    Edited at 2013-10-22 04:21 pm (UTC)

  19. Twenty minutes in and out of Victoria plus the SE corner when I got home. Agree with those who got the easy clues quickly and then found it a bit of a slog. Some of the clueing seemed pretty tired and 27dn was a disgrace – a “Friday afternoon car” of a crossword, perhaps.

    28ac raised a smile – shades of Miss Prism and three-volume novels. I suppose the Bracknells’ bassinet would have been “extremely elegant”.

    Edited at 2013-10-22 03:37 pm (UTC)

  20. Loved man d inside the US – seems good for the brain to have it turned inside out and then split in two!
    Apologies if this isn’t the right time or place but I’ve been looking for news on ‘sluggers and betters’ at Sheffield Tap. I have this Saturday pencilled in my calendar and was wondering if this is still on.
    Thanks.

    Edited at 2013-10-22 03:37 pm (UTC)

    1. No news as far as I’m aware (which I would imagine suggests it’s still on). If you don’t already, you might want to keep an eye on the Fifteen Across blog (link on the right hand side up top) to double your chances of seeing any new information…
  21. About 20 minutes for everything except PREVALENT. I solved top to bottom, left to right, but I skipped PREVALENT and forgot to go back, so a DNF. As I read it here, it’s a very tricky clue, but I can’t describe my feelings at having solved it, because, well, I didn’t. Oops. Regards to all. Olivia, do I take it from your comments above that you actually flew across the ocean to enter the Crossword championship? That is dedication. Special regards to you.
    1. Yes, Kevin – representing Dutchess County! I wish I’d made a better showing but really these things are very difficult under tournament conditions so I have the greatest admiration for those who pull it off. I met several of the usual suspects and sat behind the great Tony Sever at the prelim. Paul from NY, who lives in London and sometimes comments here, introduced himself which was very nice indeed.
  22. Very happy with this time as I took ages over ‘itinerancy’ and ‘unhandy’, constructions I have not met previously. I also thought that ‘aircraftman’ had an ‘s’ after the ‘t’, so I agonised over that for a while.
    Congratulations to everyone who took part on Saturday: respect.
    George Clements
  23. A disappointing 13:55 for me. I should have waited until I was feeling less tired! Like others, I wasn’t too taken with 27dn.
    1. at least that’s when I started. 8:15 before I gave up and guessed at “ennead”.

      Not overly impressed with any of the clueing here – two thirds of them went in without much thought, and the rest failed to elicit a smile. I didn’t think “bar staff” was the worst by a long way – 21a and 16d struck me as less imaginative.

      Relieved the tedium of a slow night in the department by endeavouring to use each answer in conversation with the customers (or, as we still sometimes call them when we’re feeling quaint, ‘patients’). ‘Spirit’, ‘scar’, ‘breathalyse’ and ‘user’ all slipped naturally into the smalltalk. ‘Cobra’ was more difficult, as there are few of them about in East Anglia, especially at this time of night. And one person has been discharged with a strapped wrist, having sprained the small ligament known to us medics as the themandus.

  24. 26 minutes, with a technical query. Are AIRCRAFT(S)MEN actually fliers? I thought they were the erks on the ground who did all the dirty work to keep the real glamour boys in the air. Perhaps someone with RAF experience can enlighten.
    1. Someone else raised this on the Club forum, but I think you have to give the setter a little leeway in how you define “high-flier”; my quick Google-based research shows that while you certainly wouldn’t get a pilot of that rank, the tail-gunner in a WWII bomber, for instance, might well be an Aircraftman.

Comments are closed.