Times 25617 – Get the bird? Just the opposite, perhaps….

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 34 minutes

Music: Schubert, Impromptus, Kempff

This is an average puzzle for a Monday. At first, I thought it was going to be a gallop, as I filled in rather simple clues at a rapid pace, only to be brought to a sudden halt in the middle of my solve. I never doubted I would finish it, but the puzzle turned out to be more of challenge than I expected.

I am glad it wasn’t too hard, for once again I am stuck with the GMT/EDT puzzle, where I have to wait until 8 PM to get started. Fortunately, we will setting our clocks back here in the US next weekend, so I will soon be back to my normal solving schedule.

Across
1 NEWCOMER, anagram of OMEN + CREW.
5 FUNNEL, FUN + LEN backwards. I was thinking of ‘tunnel’ for a while, then I saw what it must be.
10 GO OUT LIKE A LIGHT, GO OUT + LIKE + ALIGHT, where ‘crash’ alone is the definition.
11 ENCHANTING, E(N + CHANT + I)NG. The first use I can recall of ‘Eng’ rather than ‘E’ for ‘English’.
13 STAR, ‘S TAR. As in a star turn, matching the adjectival sense of ‘brilliant’.
15 TEA LEAF, a rather unusual clue using the Cockney Rhyming Slang for ‘thief’. We are usually given the CRS and expected to use the literal meaning, rather than the other way around as here.
17 ETERNAL, E(sounds like TURN)AL. Like most solvers, I saw ‘endless’ and tried shortening various words, but no, it’s the literal. A nice enclosing anagram.
18 IN HOUSE, anagram of HEINOUS.
19 RAMPAGE, R(AMP)AGE. A bit of a change from the usual style of clue involving an animal and a boy.
21 LEER, REEL backwards. This should be almost instantaneous for Boggle players.
22 RESPONDENT, R + [d]ESPONDENT, but I didn’t bother with the cryptic until just now.
25 COMMUNITY CHARGE, COMMUNITY + CHARGE in very different senses. I was not up on UK tax terminology, and was thinking this was something you had to pay in the 16th century, only to find that it was only 20 years ago; old enough, I suppose.
27 TITFER, TIT(-t + F)ER. A bit of CRS I didn’t know, ‘tit for tat’, so I had to put it in from the cryptic.
28 SET PIECE, SET + PIECE in different senses.
 
Down
1 NEGLECT, hidden in [lati]N, EG, LECT[ures].
2 WOO, WOO[d], the clue that made me think this was going to be rather easy.
3 OUTRAGEOUS, anagram of ROGUE AUTO’S.
4 EDICT, EDI(C)T, one of my last in, I’m afraid, but not a hard clue.
6 UGLY, [j]U(G)LY.
7 NIGHTINGALE, NIGHT IN + GALE.
8 LATERAL, LATER + A + L. The definition is apparently ‘side branch’, and not just ‘side’.
9 REINDEER, REED(N)IER upside down. A variant on another pair like ‘leer’ and ‘reel’.
12 CRASH HELMET, CRASH + HELM + E.T.
14 PENMANSHIP, PEN + MAN’S + HIP. Penfold61’s nic caused me to see this immediately, so the blog is of some use
16 FRENETIC, FRE(NE)T + IC. I had a lot of trouble with this, because I wasn’t sure what part of the cryptic to apply the reversal to.
18 ILLICIT, ILL + I + CIT[e]. I didn’t get the cryptic at all, thinking ‘mention’ was a ‘sounds like’ indicator, and just putting it in from the literal.
20 EXTREME, anagram of M[aiden] + EXETER.
23 PAYEE, P(AYE)E.
24 CURE, C + URE.
26 RUE, double definition.

46 comments on “Times 25617 – Get the bird? Just the opposite, perhaps….”

  1. A disappointing 15:21 for me. I was going slowly (very slowly!) but reasonably steadily before coming to a stand with TEA LEAF, FRENETIC (I couldn’t remember whether Nebraska was NA or NB – doh!) and RESPONDENT.

    I also agonised a bit over TITFER (worried about “the last of three” for no good reason I can think of now). However, I had no doubts about FUNNEL. My guess is that if the clue came up in the Championship, RUNNEL would not be accepted, on the grounds that LENN is not sufficiently well recognised as a man’s name.

  2. Count me in as another RUNNEL. I was hooked on RU as the sport, so took a lenient view of LENN as the man’s name.

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