Times 25623 – Oh, Lewis…

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
What would Morse have thought of this? Nothing to distract him from the tedium of staving off adoring females and keeping up his lugubrious aspect 24/7. 16 minutes for me, so who knows what records may be set today? Jimbo may not have even entered the park.

Across

1 FOUR-LETTER WORD
9 LASER BEAM – anagram* of L + SEA BREAM.
10 SWISH – W+IS in SH.
11 IRATE – I+RATE.
12 DISAPPEAR – N + APPRAISED*.
13 GATHERED – GAT + HERE + D.
15 BISTRO – ST in BIRO; am I the only person to internally (and sometimes externally) say this word in a Lorraine Chase sort of way? I know, I’m a dreadful snob.
17 TIGGER – GG in TIER.
19 TEXT+BOOK
22 TOUCH + WOOD
23 RATIO[n]
24 OPTED – PT in OED.
25 CONUNDRUM – O+NUN in CD + RUM.
26 KNOW ONES ONIONS – ON SOON ONE WINKS* for a definition that may make you cry if you don’t run the tap…

Down

1 FILLING STATION – ‘standing’ in the sense of social position, hence station, above which one can get ideas. ‘At times’ I suppose to satisfy the pedant who might point out that a petrol station is sometimes sans customers.
2 UPSTART – UP + START (‘jump’).
3 LARNE – L(A+RN)E; years wasted studying maps finally pays dividends.
4 TRENDIER – END in TRIER; ditto (‘tho a bit of a write-in, TBH).
5 ENMESH – HE (His/Her Excellency) reversed around an A-less NAME.
6 WEST POINT – a write-in for those like me who’ve only heard of one US military academy; okay, maybe two…
7 RAIMENT – AIM in RENT; we’ve had enough of this recently to stock a lock-up.
8 SHERLOCK HOLMES – Holmes is okay, but there’s only one Endeavour Morse. Oh yes – getting carried away with the promo – it’s HELL SHOCK MORSE*.
14 EYE SHADOW – EYE + SH(AD)OW.
16 READINGS – READING + S; the alma mater which I try to keep quiet about…
18 GLUTTON – GUILT minus I* + TON; a gourmand can be a connoisseur and s/he can be a glutton. I have never knowingly been the former.
20 ONTARIO – ‘here’ is the literal, from which Rhode Island is indeed S-E; so, ON followed by A+RI in TO.
21 TOUCAN – South American bird that is partial to a drop of the black stuff; OUT* (‘flying’) + CA (‘about’) + N.
23 RUN IN – N (‘knight’ – in chess) in RUIN; Morse leaves this kind of thing to Lewis.

62 comments on “Times 25623 – Oh, Lewis…”

  1. And that’s about as quickly as I could enter them in the grid.

    Only thing of note is the complete hash I made of parsing 20dn (ONTARIO). I had the “one” in the clue doing double duty, so: AR (Arkansas) + 1 inside TO. Then I rationalised the geography by working out that Arkansas is south-east of Ontario, Oregon! (The Ontarios in California and NY having been eliminated.) And all I needed was to take the “a” in the clue seriously.

    The geography of North America often defeats me. For a long time I simply couldn’t believe a Canadian student who said his home town — in Ontario! — was further south than some bits of California. But it’s absolutely true!

    Edited at 2013-11-04 01:30 am (UTC)

    1. If I got it wrong, would you feel Superior?

      On edit: Or is the answer “none”, since lakes, by definition, do not have coastlines?

      Edited at 2013-11-04 01:47 am (UTC)

      1. No points for arguing with the quizmaster. The answer’s Huron.

        Edited at 2013-11-04 02:08 am (UTC)

          1. The q. might have been restricted to the Great Lakes – can’t recall now. Like you – and nearly everyone else in the room – we plumped for Superior.
            1. While we’re on the Great Lakes, Ontario, and geography quizzes — did you know that the first foreign country that you encounter when heading south out of Detroit (more or less on Lake Erie) is… Canada. And, Detroit is well to the west of most of South America.

  3. Thought I might sneak in under 10′, but 2 or 3 (LARNE and TOUCAN and something else, already forgotten) slowed me down. Nice to start the week like this, but one wouldn’t want another in the same week. (Freudian?) Typo, Ulaca: the anagram is (HE’LL SHOCK MORSE).
    1. Neither a typo nor Freudian, as far as I know. The apostrophe went the way of all flesh in the capitalisation process.
      1. No, I meant that it’s (MORSE) not (HOLMES) in the anagrist. I didn’t notice the absence of an apostrophe (Freudian reading slip?).
  4. 7:21 .. which is somewhere around my best (and with some checking time, too). So I would have to rate this as “not entirely difficult”.

    A great learners’ puzzle, though, and the tabu clue is the sort that would get a newcomer hooked. Very nice.

  5. 20 minutes with the last 5 on 16dn. “University town” indeed! Whatever next?

    This is not the first time that Morse has turned up in an anagram of Sherlock Holmes but I can’t track down the previous occasion

    1. My only memory of that place — while visiting the university which I can’t remember — was a beautiful private garden with eucalypts. It’s amazing how you come to miss them after a few months away.
  6. 7m. As Sotira says, not entirely difficult. Some very obvious definitions: “famous detective (8, 6)” doesn’t really require a lot of effort and “Milne character” isn’t going to delay anyone for very long. I didn’t know LARNE but the wordplay was clear.

  7. At 20mins one of my quickest ever, despite lack of geographical knowledge (dnk LARNE, TRIER, and didn’t parse ONTARIO).

  8. 13.08 and really feel I should have been on or close to a pb, currently at about 10.30. I’ve always been fond of the toucan since absorbing the pun in the ad as a child.
    Toucans in their nest agree
    Guinness is good for you.
    Just try one today and see
    What one or toucan do.
    – with the appropriate bird knocking it back. I guess that’s where the degenerative crossword fever started…
  9. I also didn’t quite parse Ontario, but wrote it in happily enough anyway.
    Reading will forever remain a polytechnic town for me, and be all the more honest and no less useful because of it
    1. Jerry,

      I am afraid your memory is at fault. Reading was never a Polytechnic town. The University was founded in the 1890s as an extension college of Oxford University and was granted its Royal Charter in 1926. It was the only University to be created between the two world wars.

      Chris

      1. I bow to superior knowledge Chris, however it doesn’t excuse a rubbishy clue in my opinion. Reading cannot be defined seriously as “university town” any more than dozens of others in the UK – or hundreds across the world for that matter. It’s ludicrous.

        Edited at 2013-11-04 02:14 pm (UTC)

  10. 8 minutes, so what’s softer than talc on the scale? But enjoyable, for all that, if not for long.
    Thought I was on to a tricky one when neither of the two 1’s collapsed at first prod, but the other two long ones did and opened up both the grid and a belief in its underlying simplicity.
    Like others, it seems, I put in ONTARIO without much of a clue as to how it worked. On reflection, I’ve realised 1) there isn’t a US state abbreviated to TA and 2) Rio may be SE of Ontario but that’s hardly a reference point.
    CoD to ****. It’s probably been clued in similar style before (the ST, in it’s current mood, would have been, shall we say, more explicit) but it made me smile today both with appreciation and a touch of relief that it wasn’t as intractable as it looked at first prod.
    And a note especially for Peter Biddlecombe. Hooray for easy ones, once in a while!
    2. For the record we have:
      in No. 22,880 (22 January 2005): It could be rude! (4-6,4)
      in No. 23,331 (3 July 2006): Rude? It certainly is (4-6,4)
      and the plural in No. 23,211 (13 February 2006): What wild, rude lads used (4,6,5)

      I expect there have been others.

  11. 8 minutes, without seeming to be in a hurry, and with a hangover. Back to staring at the Club Monthly.
  12. Nothing to add, really. Around 5 minutes, so if not a PB, close to it (not sure I can physically get any quicker than that). I am not one of those who objects to the occasional entry-level puzzle, and this was perfectly good. My only fear is, of course, that it will be balanced out by something horrible which I will have to blog tomorrow, though I don’t think the editor really works like that.
  13. Probably the nearest in crossword terms to a hot knife through butter. I kept waiting for the hard clue to appear and it never did. FYI and COD 1A. LYI 21D.
  14. Yes, an even more than usually relaxed Monday stroll in the park. About 20 mins for me. (I don’t think I could have written the answers in fast enough to match Topicaltim’s speed-of-light time even if I’d known them all in advance!).

    I very much liked 1A – very neat. There were some nice surface reads – e.g. 8D (SHERLOCK HOLMES and 17A (TIGGER) = but at the expense of making the answers too obvious. 23A (RATIO) was frankly feeble. But overall, an enjoyable puzzle, and I certainly don’t object to the occasional easy one.

  15. 8 mins and a PB for a Times puzzle. I thought the same as Z8 when I also couldn’t see 1ac and 1dn on first read through. If those two had fallen quickly then I might have got near Tim’s time. Still, it was a pleasant enough solve.

    READINGS was my LOI after TEXTBOOK.

  17. About 12 min – lost a few minutes getting into Mozilla, as Chrome still gives multiple errors. Otherwise would have probably been PB.
    LOI was 1ac, but only because after doing all downs, worked back from bottom to fill in the acrosses that I’d not got on first reading.
  18. I got someone else to check the stopwatch on my phone as I appear to have solved this in a personal record time of 3:38. One of those that wrote itself in as I went along, although I have to say the writing isn’t my neatest!
      1. Unbelievably fast, Sue. I’m might chuffed if I manage to do the Concise in anything like that time. Well done!
      2. Or with one hand tied behind her back (Bobby Fischer once challenged someone to a game of chess with that offer).
  19. Hi, long-time lurker breaking his silence. To me the definition at 26ac is nonsense – I think today’s blogger alluded to this. Surely the definition should simply be ‘be an authority on’, not ‘be an authority on tear-jerkers’. The ‘tear-jerkers’ would seem to point to another kind of clue, where the whole thing is clued cryptically; or at least where ‘ONIONS’ is indicated cryptically and the rest is an anagram of ‘KNOW ONES’.

    In the event ‘to be an authority on tear-jerkers’ doesn’t really mean anything at all, since to know one’s onions is not to be taken as a literal phrase in any but the most particular of circumstances.

    1. I didn’t think it was the world’s greatest clue – but more importantly why don’t you get an LJ account and join the party? Anonymouses tend to get a bit of a hard time and I for one always welcome fresh blood.

      Edited at 2013-11-04 04:29 pm (UTC)

  20. First for me – every across clue went in on a first reading, in the end a little over 5 minutes. Didn’t parse ONTARIO but I lived there for two years so in it went.
  21. Hello and welcome, however I think you are taking the clue far too seriously. It’s a humorous definition plus an anagram.
  22. Answered a phone call while solving, but I still don’t think I would have got near the quickest times mentioned. To solve a Times puzzle, however easy, in less than 15m is o.k. by me.
    George Clements
    1. Agreed. Anonymous doesn’t seem to understand what Cryptic crosswords are all about, including the role of the ? in indicating a humorous definition.
  24. Very straightforward solve.
    FOI Raiment, LOI Enmesh.
    Liked the four-letter word and the two famous detectives.
  26. Like many others today, I managed to set a PB though mine is less impressive than many at 11.49. Didn’t really work out ONTARIO properly so thanks for that. Am wondering if I may be related to Pipkirby as we both set PB’s with a hangover and have now both returned to the club monthly. I think my next goal must be to solve one of these without aids. May take a while!Best wishes to all from someone who rarely comments but religiously reads this invaluable and informative blog every day.
  27. Somewhere around 10 minutes, ending with the TOUCAN. Yes, it was far to the ‘easier’ side of the scale, and I felt a tad disappointed that my nightly grapple with the Times xword was over before it started. The FOUR LETTER WORD clue was amusing, though, so I feel it redeemed it. Regards.
  28. Sometimes I can zip through most of the puzzle and spend hours not getting the last two clues. This time I just zipped through all of the puzzle (‘hot knife through butter’ is most appropriate). 23’11”, but that is my best time ever. My last ones in were ONTARIO (which I had to parse before I would believe it) and TEXTBOOK — at first I was thinking along the lines of ????WORK. TOUCH WOOD is the clue I liked the best.

    Edited at 2013-11-04 07:03 pm (UTC)

  29. I think I got all but five on the 7 minute train journey to work (and I didn’t even have a seat!), and then polished it off on the five minute tram journey across town. So that’s probably a record, or certainly close to it, for me.
  30. On a day when I needed a fiendish brain-grinder – one and a half hours of various travel rather than my usual 2 times 20 minute commute – we get served this, this cruciverbal kindergarten.

    Either that, or there’s something in this automatic writing lark (Conan Doyle certainly thought so) and my hand was channelling some long-dead genius of bygone days …

    As Hugh Grant once famously said: “1ac, 1ac, 1ac, 1ac, 1ac!”

  31. I enjoyed this easy one even for me at 16.20 so near my best. Sadly the bloggers before suggest this is as easy as it gets so I may struggle to break that 15m barrier!
    1. Well, even I was under 15min on this one during a coffee break at work; heaven knows how fast I’d have been sober. Strip out the cryptic ornaments and just give the definitions, and it would almost have been a Concise. In A&E terms, this was the equivalent of a zipper accident.

      “LARNE” was the only one that slowed me down, as I failed to consider “service” as meaning one of “the services”, and had never heard of the place. As far as I’m concerned, Ireland is Dublin+fields.

      There have been plenty of puzzles that were fiendishly difficult and stumped me, and some like this that were simple and which I breezed through. So, sketching a quick Venn diagram on the back of the nearest patient, I can see that sooner or later I will breeze through a fiendishly difficult one.

      Here’s hoping that the remainder of today (which, whatever they say, isn’t tomorrow until the hangover) brings some challenging, interesting or at least amusing trauma cases. Highlights of the evening were two farmers who had each lost a finger to the same piece of machinery – the second one whilst trying to help the first one. Still, one of them was from Norfolk so he’s still got eleven left.

      Edited at 2013-11-05 12:22 am (UTC)

      1. If the fingers were saved, I do hope you managed to sort them out before reattachment. I’d hate to think of a Norfolk farmer wandering around with, say, a Suffolk finger – that’s more the start of an MR James story than an episode of Casualty.

        Do keep posting the updates from the emergency room. Of course, if you wanted a wider audience (what am I saying? You’re a doctor, of course you do) you could always do what quite a few UK solvers do and push your computer clock forward a few hours to solve tomorrow’s puzzle today (it certainly used to work), then be one of the first to post rather than one of the last.

        1. More than happy to oblige, although solving tomorrow’s puzzle today would give me the uneasy feeling of having lost several hours somewhere.

          Fingers and farmers were released to the tender mercies of surgeons who supposedly know what they’re doing – although perhaps a fingerprint expert should have been on standby. Still, there’s every chance they’ll both be able to play the theremin again.

          1. … or discover previously unknown musical gifts (like being able to play the piano brilliantly with one finger). Cross-polination, Frankenfarmers…. I hope we’re not giving Monsanto ideas …
  33. Coming very late to this as it had to be a next day solve. 6:36 and that’s the first time I’ve ever ducked under 8 minutes, never mind 7.

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