Times 25638 – in which we lightly braise a sommelier

Solving time : 23:05 on the club timer, but that was going back and forth between the crossword and the opening day of the Ashes (go Australia!). A few obscurities here, so I suspect general knowledge is going to be the difference between the lightning quickies and those facing a tougher time than usual.

Yesterday the application to be Times Crossword Editor was posted online – I saw an option to apply via LinkedIn – I wonder if applying that way would mean that I get even more LinkedIn invite emails – I look forward to those all the time.

Sarcasm off, away we go….

Across
1 GARCON: GO,N around ARC
5 BROWNING: or BR OWNING – reference Brownian motion, which I suspect most of us know thanks to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxykevingregg in comments points out the intention was the poet Robert Browning, but I like to think it is referring to Brownian motion, so I’ll keep this here
9 PANORAMA: AN,O,RAM in PA
10 ALISON: A1, SO, N(knight in chess) with L(large) inside
11 IMITATED: I(current) then Jacques TATI reversed in MED
12 COMMIT: M,M(two males),1 in COT
13 ALIEN, AT, (phon)E
15 STUN: T in SUN
17 D,ACE
19 AGNUS DEI: GNU in (IDEAS)*
20 ORACLE: CORACLE minus the C(aptain)
21 GELATINE: LATIN(tongue) in GHEE missing the H
22 ASKING: or AS KING
23 AT A PINCH: or A TAP IN, CH
24 ESTRANGE: take the B out of BEST RANGE
25 EL,EVEN
 
Down
2 A,L,ARM,IS,(sho)T
3 CROATIAN: (AIR,TO)* in CAN
4 NEAR THING: or N EARTHING
5 BRANDENBURG GATE: BAND(group) and (GRUNGE BEAT)* with an R inserted
6 WALPOLE: PO in WALL, E
7 INSOMNIA: (MINOAN,IS)*
8 GENITIVE: GEN, I’VE around IT
14 TIDAL WAVE: double def
15 SABOTAGE: AB in SOT then AGE(degenerate)
16 UPMARKET: U then MARK(stamp) in PET(paddy)
17 DIATRIBE: AID(help) reversed then TRIBE
18 CORNICHE: ROC reversed then H in NICE
19 ATLANTA: ANT in ATLA(s) – captial of the US state of Georgia

40 comments on “Times 25638 – in which we lightly braise a sommelier”

  1. I was wondering if Brownian motion was being referred to, but it’s Robert Browning the poet (‘lines expert’), no? I also assumed that pet=paddy, but had no idea why: I just now looked up ‘paddy’ to discover that meaning. And I also had no idea how to parse ESTRANGE, so thanks for that explanation: I got it from 13ac.
    1. You’re probably right – I’d like to think it’s Brownian motion, so I’ll keep my original parsing up and leave a note.
  2. Some very obvious answers, but others not so. All sorts of trouble with the SABOTAGE | ESTRANGE intersection, despite already having 13ac. Loved the Buñuel clue best of all.

    Note to bigtone53: the dyslexic translation of 19ac is ANGUS OF DOG.

  3. Once again all but a couple completed in under 30 minutes but the final two, ALISON and SABOTAGE caused me some grief. George, you have a typo at 8dn.
  4. ta muchly for correct parsing of at a pinch, the answer was obvious, but all I could think of was
    A TA (gimme) PINCH (as in pinch yourself to check), which I was not at all happy with.

    Alternative offering for 24a
    EST(her) “book top” + RANGE
    or, to my thinking, “book” is superfluous.

    Perfectly happy to be told I’m wrong (again).
    regards, Keef

      1. thankyou mctext,
        smacked wrist willingly accepted, another helping hand from you on my learning curve (vertical precipice)
        I can see now that my parsing would make the “won’t need” superfluous – but hopefully it shows I’m listening and learning.

        thanks again for your kind patience, Keef

        1. To be quite honest, my first temptation was EST for Esther. She’s been in another puzzle recently and, I think, as a book.
  5. 33m18s (uninterrupted, for a change)

    Didn’t bother to parse BRANDENBURG GATE, didn’t manage to parse ESTRANGE or AT A PINCH (not familiar with a ‘tap-in’), and didn’t stop to wonder which BROWNING it was, so thanks for those. Also didn’t consider ‘degenerate’ as a verb, so that took a little while. Otherwise all quite straightforward.

    1. From golf Janie. If a putt finishes right next to the hole it’s called a tap in – or in friendly games “a gimmie” = we’ll give you that, dont bother to hit it.

  6. Yep, I’d go with her… my OH read her best-loved poem at our wedding many moons ago…
  7. 26 mins with at least the last 10 of them spent on the ORACLE/SABOTAGE crossers, and ESTRANGE had taken a while too. The SW was definitely much trickier than the rest of the puzzle, for me at least.
  8. Almost 40min: started off quickly, eventually stuck for a while on SW. I was trying to make 15d SHIPMATE ‘drunk’ -> s(h)ip, ‘cripple’ -> mate, and also put UPTICKET at 16.
    25 was LOI – I did wonder whether there was a Cardinal Exeter in a Bunuel film, but that seemed too unlikely.
  9. 9:42 with SABOTAGE and ELEVEN holding me up the longest, the latter probably because of the ” ” making me have to really look at the wordplay before the penny dropped.
    1. Now Jimbo, you rascal, surely you didn’t woo Mrs.dj with readings from On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat … or did you?
      1. I tried Sotira but for some reason it got me nowhere. The sun setting behind Old Harry Rock and casting shadows across the sea however…..
  10. Reasonable enough puzzle with a smattering of the more difficult amongst the straightforward. Liked 23A. 25 minutes to solve after being blown away on the golf course
  11. All correct today with FOI Genitive and LOI Oracle.
    SW corner held me up the longest until Sabotage popped into my head from S????A?? then once I was happy that was correct Estrange and Oracle.
    George – thanks for explaining Eleven and Croatian. I must remember to think of anagrams when I see ‘supply’ in a clue!
    Corniche brought to mind happy days in Nice and Monte Carlo.
  12. Fairly straightforward, with many definitions leaping out, until the SABOTAGE/ESTRANGE crossing, which took a couple of minutes. Fortuitously cracked ESTRANGE via Esther, who has cropped up recently as mentioned earlier, then realised the parsing was nothing to do with that.
  13. 38:34 .. with more wrong turns than an Athenian taxi-driver with a fresh-faced fare from the airport (I’m still bitter). At one point I was close to having an entire quadrant filled with wrong answers. Bet Magoo can’t do that.
  14. having left the bed to watch the Ashes halfway through the night, then getting soaked for 7 holes, before tackling this. Finished correctly in a sluggish 45 minutes with a few written in not fully understood. Thanks to Mr Blogger for explaining ALIENATE and ESTRANGE.
    Browning must be referring to the poet chap, because Brownian motion was so named after Mr Brown not Mr Browning.
  15. A mix of relatively straightforward and some really tricky stuff. SABOTAGE, ESTRANGE (thanks for the full explanation, George) and ELEVEN (my LOI) were all top-notch. As a fellow-golfer, I join Jimbo in liking AT A PINCH.
  16. Well, everyone understands 25 except me. I see ‘even’ and the cardinal number, but not the rest (nor the surface (is ‘The C.C.’ a film?)). Liked 15 down. 27.46.
    (On (re-)edit) Oh, got it.

    Edited at 2013-11-21 04:53 pm (UTC)

    1. I was pretty clueless about that, too. Bunuel was a Spanish film director, hence “Bunuel’s ‘the'” would be ‘el’. So “Bunuel’s the”+constant gives EL+EVEN = the cardinal number 11. I think.

      Edited at 2013-11-21 06:59 pm (UTC)

  17. 30 minutes for all but “estrange” which I looked at for a further 10 minutes despite knowing that the definition had to be “separate”. I couldn’t get anything from parsing and “entrance” was the only word I could see that would fit. So had to resort to an aid when frustratingly the answer was blindingly obvious.
  18. 25 minutes (more or less)with the same hold-ups in the SW corner. I also spent ages trying to remember Bunuel’s given name (it was luis) and the story line of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie in case that was any help. It wasn’t. Jim will be happy to know that my spell checker insistently changed the artsy film director to Brunel. Good call. Did anyone else consider trying to fit “red” in there anywhere?
    At least 13ac was there to make sure we knew 24ac was some synonym of “separate”.
    In my distant past, my first pastorate had as one of its most formidable members a one-time (and one-eyed) Headmistress called Agnes Daly. I should have got 19ac much quicker than I did.
  19. 31 minutes, with over half of that on my last two, SABOTAGE and ORACLE. Very frustrating. But I liked the puzzle a lot.
  20. Nice constructions throughout, nice surfaces too, though I was caught out by COD EL EVEN, and also ESTRANGE. Nicely weighted for a Thursday, and it’ll sharpen up the teeth for whatever they send down tomorrow.

    Thank blogger, setter too.

    Chris (logged out at someone else’s keyboard).

  21. A very enjoyable solve, about 40 minutes in all, including about 15 staring at the NE corner. Moved steadily left to right, and once the BRANDENBURG GATE was breached, many more followed. Seriously stuck at the NE, until WALPOLE sprang to mind, possibly because just ten minutes before I’d been discussing the Hermitage pictures at Houghton Hall! The rest followed quickly. I should really have seen BROWNING before, as I’d been working on the assumption of the whole being a poet, but parsed as L-filler-NER, until the gate and the excellent GENITIVE went in, but the block continued until the aforesaid Walpoling activity … cheesy comestibles anybody?
  22. Tricky puzzle, which took me about 45 minutes, ending when I finally figured out ELEVEN. Nice clue. I also liked SABOTAGE, and GENITIVE. Thanks to the setter, and George too. Regards.
  23. 13:10 for me, struggling to find the setter’s wavelength. As others have remarked, this was a strange mixture of the very easy with the significantly more difficult, making for a rather uneven solve.
  24. Untimed as solving was interrupted by a phone call, but an enjoyable puzzle. As someone with less 16d sporting knowledge, I can say that, in football, a ‘tap-in’ is also a goal easily scored from close range following a pass from (usually) a teammate, or it can also result from a rebound from a goalpost.

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