Times 25,630 – A Bit Tricky

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This puzzle may I feel cause some problems. 2D is a particularly obscure term with a not particularly helpful cryptic. I was fortunate to be able to solve from the definition, having seen the term before. I don’t understand the cryptic at 3D, so all explanations welcome. Many of these clues are quite involved and require concentrated effort. There is some interesting use of slang to potentially frustrate the overseas solvers in particular. I was slow to finish in 35 minutes but would have been quicker if not blogging.

Across
1 STROKE – two meanings 1=caress 2=method of swimming and a DBE;
5 SURE-FIRE – (US reversed)-REFIRE; a “banker” is a certainty;
9 GENE,POOL – LOO-PEN-EG all reversed; little room=toilet=LOO; for one=for example=EG;
10 LUNACY – L(UN)ACY; “a” in French=UN;
11 INADEQUATE – (queen at aid)*;
13 APEX – A-PEX; “point at top” is definition; what?=A? + homophone based upon “pecs” for muscles;
14 EDGY – (t)E(i)D-(a)G(o)Y; presumably yoga and diet make participants calm – I wouldn’t know;
15 INSIDE,LEFT – IN=home; SIDE=team; LEFT=skipped=was skipper of; old fashioned forward position in football;
18 PERRUQUIER – (up require)* – (orde)R; Willy Clarkson perhaps;
20 CITE – C(IT)E; one nominated to catch others=IT in child’s game;
21 CHIC – CHIC(ken); yellow=cowardly=chicken; range of experience=ken;
23 ENTRY-LEVEL – door=ENTRY; flat=LEVEL;
25 CUP,TIE – CU(P)TIE; small coin=P(penny); dish=good looking girl=CUTIE;
26 WHIZ,KIDS – W-HI-Z-KIDS; with=W; greeting=HI; variable=Z(algebra); jokes=KIDS;
28 ADJACENT – A-DJ-ACE-NT; jacket=DJ; one=ACE; NT=New Testament=collection of books; close is the definition;
29 PARODY – PA(ROD)Y; staff=ROD; settle=PAY; boarded=containment indicator;
 
Down
2 TIE-AND-DYE – an obscure term from cloth manufacturing in which material is knotted before dying so that patches of cloth are not coloured once the knots are undone; to draw a game is to TIE and DYE sounds like “die”;
3 OPEN,DAY – well, the definition is “visiting hours” – life’s too short to puzzle out the cryptic; on edit – see solution from Jack;
4 ECO – (villag)E-(idylli)C-(s)O; green is definition;
5 SALSA – SAL-SA(t); a Mexican dip (sauce);
6 ROLLER,DERBY – curler=ROLLER (ladies hair); bowler=hat=DERBY in Denver; organised punch-up on roller skates;
7 FAN,MAIL – FAIL=founder surrounds (man)*;
8 RECCE – hidden reversed (ylniat)REC-CE(s); to case the joint is to RECCE;
12 QUINQUEREME – QU(IN-QUER(y))E-ME; that in France=QUE; ME=Middle East; an old ship;
16 SKI – SKI(p);
17 FAT-HEADED – FA(THE-A)DED; without=outside of; A=answer; the whole clue is the definition;
19 RICOTTA – (tart+i=one)* surrounds CO=Company=firm; a cheese;
20 CHECKER – two meanings based upon check=stop and check=vet;
22 HOUND – H-UNDO with O=old “raised”; H=hard (pencil lead); harry is definition;
24 TO,WIT – sounds like “twit” of “twit twoo”;
27 IMP – I-MP (one member of parliament);

60 comments on “Times 25,630 – A Bit Tricky”

  1. 3dn: OP (work) + 3 words that END AY.

    And it’s another pangram!

    A really enjoyable challenge which took me only a couple of minutes short of the hour, but it was satisfying to chip away at it and get there eventually without resort to aids.

    I assume you spotted What = eh? = “A” at 13ac, Jim, but you have a typo at 21ac.

    Edited at 2013-11-12 09:14 am (UTC)

      1. I reckon it’s all homophone. What = “eh”, sounds like A. Then the rest as you have it Jim.
            1. Crossed wires as I hadn’t looked at the blog again. I think Jim added that bit following my earlier comment at the top of the thread.
  3. 18m. I rather enjoyed this, but I imagine it won’t be to the taste of some with its rather tricky wordplay.
    I’m surprised you think of “tie and dye” as obscure, Jimbo. Quite commonplace in my experience. I must know more hippies.
    Fans of QI will know that 24dn is inaccurate: what we have here is a full hoot. The sound “to-wit to-woo” is actually two owls calling to one another: the female says “to-wit” and the male replies “to-woo”.
    I thought 14ac was a bit odd. I suppose a diet might make you calm but anyone who’s seen what Haribos do to my kids would know that this is not necessarily the case.

    Edited at 2013-11-12 09:26 am (UTC)


  4. Happy to finish this at last (took an age…), but then found I had one wrong… carelessly put in ‘sure form’ at 5ac, thinking that ‘reform’ would be ‘to start afresh’. Silly mistake.

    A couple went in without parsing (OPEN DAY, LEFT=skipped, HOUND), and QUINQUEREME from wp.

    I always knew the colouring method as ‘tie-dye’, but not too far a stretch to get it to TIE AND DYE.

    Last one in SALSA, after I got GENE POOL. Had put ‘sauna’ in at first but wasn’t at all happy with having a dip in a sauna, so glad to find it wasn’t that!

    Did realise it was a pangram, but only after I’d got all the letters, so that didn’t help much today.

  5. I get a house-point for remembering we had ‘tie and dye’ (unhyphenated that time) on Tim’s watch just over a year ago (Times 25,301 http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/893694.html), but two deducted for writing in ‘toe-and-dye’, as I could only remember that we had it not what we had. I also wrote ‘perrequier’, so all in all not my finest hour.

    Like our resident ‘multiparent’, I was also slightly bemused by 14ac, but then I don’t know much more about diets than I do about wig-makers. Slightly faster than yesterday, but I’m still not telling…

  6. Dear Jim
    Someone will beat me to it but in 3d deejay, say and may all end with ay. Thus enday after op.
    Dear crossword editor,
    Some of us have work to do you know, well not me actually, but some do.
        1. Thank you Jim.
          Not bothered much about Surrey, they got what they deserved. We do have the consolation of having Graeme Smith as skipper next season if he has recovered from his head injury. At least I think he has an injury because I heard someone say he needed his head examining.
  7. Tie-Dyeing (I agree with janie on this) was an essential part of my teenage 60s, along with turning jeans into bellbottoms by inserting velvet along the seams. I also recall the late Sir Michael Horden reciting John Masefield’s Cargoes which starts ‘Quinquereme of Ninevah … ‘ when he pronounced it to rhyme with Jeremy. I always thought it was a bit odd.
    1. That Michael Hordern story made me laugh so much I took the liberty of citing it over on the Club Forum (with due attribution to you of course).
  8. I knew memorising Cargoes the last time we had moidores would pay off in the long run. Otherwise an almost fibonaccian solve as I got terminally stuck on 1,2,3,5’s and 9. COD to OPEN DAY amongst a host of difficult parsings. Hats off to a setter who crosses two Q’s.

    Is CHECKER as simple as you suggest, Jim? I was so puzzled by the use of “one dispatched” that I thought it must be a reference to Her Majesty, as in Parliamentary Dispatches, but now I think ER next to CHECK could be a bow too long. Rather than risk being declared a spammer I cordially invite you all to google John Prescott Parliamentary Dispatches shin guards gettyimages.

    1. Yeh, I’m still trying to fully parse CHECKER. Stopper and vet: OK. But: one dispatched? An American draughts piece perhaps?

      There seemed to be a lot of reversals today, but on the count, only 6. About 20%.

      COD to 6dn for sheer arsiness (I quote).

          1. Yes, a bit wordy, and it’s not as if the wordiness contributes to a particularly smooth surface. I can’t see another way of reading it though.
        2. Yeah, that would do it. It’s just that “dispatched” seems to suggest, possibly as a deliberate piece of misdirection, some deeper meaning.
  9. The only problem with memorising moidores etc was that Masefield spells that ship “quinqu(i)reme” which I blithely tossed in without bothering to parse and then was looking at i*t*y for 23a. Even briefly wondered was it going to be some sort of bikini. No trouble with the rest of it and ditto Bigtone et al on 2d. 22.21.

    Edited at 2013-11-12 11:24 am (UTC)

    1. Good thing my memory isn’t that good, or perhaps I wasn’t reading him in the urtext edition.
  10. 26 mins and much more fun than yesterday’s puzzle because of the excellent wordplay and cunning definitions. I was help up slightly by having entered “quinquireme” at 12dn without parsing it properly, so thanks to Olivia for confirming that my memory of the spelling of it from the Masefield poem was correct. The SE was the last to fall and CITE was my LOI. Thanks to Jim for parsing FAT-HEADED, and to others for parsing OPEN DAY.
  11. Difficult but enjoyable, though I eventually needed aids for the unknown wig maker and the should- have-known warship. Jim’s right: the slang/British usages I mostly recognised once solved for, but they didn’t help by springing to mind. Was flummoxed by SKI. Both TIE(d), as in the runner between two railroad rails, and DOE, (last of bounD …) were close enough to get trials, which didn’t help the crosses.

    And, for the record, count me with BigT and Janie regarding Tie Dye, both in cultural importance and in spelling.

      1. Yes, exactly, a sleeper. I thought tie might just be local usage, but it’s in the OED.
  12. 20:24, testing but fair, so well done, setter and blogger (glad it appeared on the right Tuesday from my POV). Don’t think I have any original observations – didn’t know the wig-maker, but the anagrist only gave one obvious outcome; initially left blank the middle vowel in the ship because my memory of Masefield said “I” but the wordplay said “E”; also not my experience that diets tend to make people calm.

    I was born too late to play any meaningful part in the Summer of Love, but there were still tie-dye garments knocking around when I was young. (When the film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy came out last year, it was praised for its period authenticity – the designer pointed out that people often make the mistake of thinking “this film is set in 1973, let’s fill the screen only with things which were made in 1973”, overlooking the fact that most people would still be wearing shirts or driving cars or listening to music that had been made in 1969, or 1966).

  13. Thank you kind sir – though I seem to recall you getting a slippery one last Tuesday?

    Judging by comments about tie-dye I was born too early to know what it was all about!

  14. The wig-maker nearly did for me in this rather tricksy puzzle, but I got there in the end. With said end being quite a long time after the start.

    On that, I suppose it’s related to the business of whether or not to include arcane references, or at least somewhat dark ones, in that some words are more familiar than others. This was (as you may have noticed) anagrammed, which makes for a very tough solve of an unusual word, but I must confess I am glad enough to see such animals in the daily grind.

    Re Tinker Tailor, I was only able to understand the film as a result of being a devotee of the TV series. But ooh I do like stuff like that: only this weekend I’ve managed to cram in repeat viewings of State of Play, The State Within, Tinker Tailor and (ongoing) Edge of Darkness. Wonderful stuff, especially the latter.

    Many thanks to Jimbo and a clever setter.

    Edited at 2013-11-12 12:32 pm (UTC)

    1. Edge of Darkness. Best TV series, ever.

      38 mins with a few guesses. Bireme and trireme, so why not quinquireme, later corrected. Lucky to know an Italian hairdressery is a parruccheria. Open day couldn’t parse, nor adjacent – DJ for (dinner) jacket? Here in the 51st state they’ve been tuxedos for years.

      Rob

  15. Found this a real slog, ending on the unknown (and hence inevitably clued as an anagram) PERRUQUIER. Count me in the crew of the quinquireme until I bothered to parse it.
  16. 21 minutes, much rustling around in the undergrowth of the NW corner. ECO went in without parsing because, unlike EGO, it at least match one word in the clue. Thanks Jim for pointing out that feet in a down clue can mean the last letters – though I should have sussed that, I suppose, in a long clue for a short word.
    I’ve ALWAYS spelled the boats with an I, and it parses: QUE and Middle East containing INQUIR for doubt briefly. Good enough for Masefield, and no-one ever corrected him! ENTRY LEVEL therefore took a while.
    FAT-HEADED was my other don’t-get-it, forgetting to look for a sort of &lit.
    I liked CHIC best.
    1. Wouldn’t your INQUIR have to be “in doubt briefly” though?
      I must say after reading the comments I’m glad I was untroubled by previous knowledge in this case.
      1. Probably right! There were way too many containments for comfort anyway
        What’s an extra in amongst friends?
  18. Gave up with both Q-words missing but enjoyed the rest of it, especially open day. No probs with tie and dye as we had to do some at school in “home economics” in the early 70s.
  20. For what it is worth, I am now into day 3 of working on Dean Mayer’s ST offering, with only about half done.It is driving me up the wall so good luck, blogger!
  21. Really enjoyed this puzzle because of the ‘aha’ moment each time I solved a clue from wordplay not definition (eg parody, lunacy, sure fire, gene pool, whiz kids…).
    I didn’t quite get to the end though – stumped by the wig maker and old ship.
    Thank you to the setter, and to Jimbo for the blog and the explanation of cite.
  22. I thought this was a great puzzle. It took me about 45 minutes, well worth the time and effort. Thanks to the setter, and Jimbo as well. FAT-HEADED is superb, as were several others. Regards to all.
  23. This took some time, partly because I’ve introduced countless children to ‘Cargoes’ with the Masefield spelling and only got away from it when twigged entry in entry level. Great “tie and die” concept. What a puzzle. A real gem.
  24. … to find I had it all right, was not convinced about CHECKER and CITE which were my two LOI. Why does CITE mean SUMMONS?
    Otherwise a fine and enjoyable challenge, 35 minutes.
    Am among those still stuck on last Sunday’s stinker.
    1. The fourth definition for “cite” in my dictionary is “to summon before a court of law”. I think that the Americans say “citation” when we would say “summons”.
      1. Thanks K45, I see now in my OED cite = summon before… but why is it SUMMONS not summon? Or is CITE a noun as well?
        1. “Summons” can be a verb. ODO gives the example “he has been summonsed to appear in court next month”. This meaning is also in Collins, although Chambers doesn’t approve.
          1. The Lion and Albert

            But Mother had turned a bit awkward
            When she thought where her Albert had gone.
            She said ‘No! someone’s got to be summonsed’ –
            So that was decided upon.

  25. Thanks again, fair enough if it can be a verb, but it’s ugly, making a verb out of a noun, when there’s already a verb ‘summon.’ Chambers and I don’t approve. But the clue is now approved.
  26. One error, entering ‘perriquier’ at 18a, once again failing to take the time to work through an anagram properly: especially unforgivable as I could do with the services of a ‘perruquier’. I was also one of the Masefield spellers until I got 23a.
    Time with error 29m dead.
  27. 12:33 for me. For once I seemed to be on the setter’s wavelength but was held up (like others) by bunging in QUINQUIREME (damn that Masefield!) and (unlike others) by misreading “ultimately” in 19ac as “immediately” and spending ages worrying where the missing R needed for PERRUQUIER came from. (I gave up in the end, and it was only when I went through the clues more carefully afterwards that I realised my mistake.)

    An interesting and enjoyable puzzle.

  28. Coming late today (Wednesday), as the paper wasn’t delivered yesterday and I had not planned to go out. Still, a nice 40 minutes (give or take) this morning over coffee. Agree with all who said it was a gem! All the clues seemed to work nicely (except CHECKER), and especially liked FAT-HEADED and the CUTIE holding the money! OPEN DAY, with its three AYs was especially fine. I’m old enough to have remembered tie-dyed fabrics (alas!), and to have read Cargoes at school (hooray!). (Do they still do that, I wonder?)

    I’ll have a go at today’s after lunch!

  29. If anyone’s still reading they may be interested to know that, re QINQUEREME, I did wonder about the masefield poem as I distinctly remember hearing our primary school teacher enounce “quinqueye-reme of Nineveh” most distinctly.
    However, I was unable to check this as I was abroad at the time with no access to any books or the internet. So I trusted to the dictionary spelling 🙂

    1. Thank you setter. Apart from your primary school teacher and Sir Michael Hordern, I think that the accepted pronounciation is Quin-ker-eem

      Edited at 2013-11-13 07:47 pm (UTC)

      1. Well I think as far as pronounciation of the dictionary word goes it’s “kwinkwereem”. Pronounciation of the Masefield version is presumably as you like it, given it’s an oddity 🙂

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