Times 25647 – A little bit of this and a little bit of that

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
53 minutes for me, with five of those spent on the unknown revloutionary chap. A little bit of everything here: Greek, British slang, British toff-speak, British northern towns, misenumeration from the good folk at The Times, with not a bit of cricket in sight. Unless I’ve missed it. I usually do.

Across

1 NUTMEG – The NUT (National Union of The-underpaid) is in front of M[ale], with EG (‘say’) taking up the rear.
5 PASSER-BY – PASS+ER+BY; ‘by’, as in ‘I put it by/aside for a rainy day’.
9 KING-SIZE – KINGS + Z in I[ts] E[ducation].
10 TWEEDY – T[oo] + WEEDY for country types like Dorset Jimbo…
11 FELLOE – ODO has it only in the plural, but not Collins, which gives: ‘a segment or the whole rim of a wooden wheel to which the spokes are attached and onto which a metal tyre is usually shrunk’. All Greek to me, even if it sounds like it ought to be a crossword regular.
12 TROMBONE – cryptic definition; ‘Principal trombone’ refers to the player not the instrument.
14 POP ONE’S CLOGS – beats ‘kick the bucket’, ‘shuffle off one’s mortal coil’, etc. any day. MY COD. Anagram* of CLOSE SONG preceded by POP [music]. According to the Guardian, the expression may have its origin in clog as ‘a block or heavy piece of wood, attached to the leg or neck of a man or beast, to impede motion and prevent escape’, so that by popping one’s clogs, he is escaping the burdens of life.
17 TWILIGHT ZONE – TWILIGHT + [o]ZONE [less ‘none’ = with no O]; not a contender for Clue of the Year.
20 WELSHMAN – [scanda]L + NEWHAMS* to give the leak-eater (‘National’).
22 LAPDOG – it couldn’t be ‘copdon’ so had to be PD + O in LAG.
23 RINGER – triple definition; we have the bloke (or bird – mustn’t be sexist) in the silly hat ringing his bell and shouting ‘Oyez, oyez’, the lookalike (‘He’s a dead ringer for x’) and the person who wishes to ‘ring the changes’.
25 REGIONAL – I was hoping for an allusion to 20 to give ‘Turk’ or ‘Jack’, but sadly it’s only NO + I in LAGER all reversed.
26 EGGS+HE+LL – not sure how many times I’ve forgotten this, but ‘eggshell china/porcelain’ is ‘a type of very thin translucent porcelain originally made in China’.
27 TIFFIN – TIFF + IN (‘during’) for a light repast enjoyed in India and by tweedy types in Dorsetshire.

Down

2 UNISEX – the outside letters of S[trang]E in ‘a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system that exists in many variants’ (UNIX), which I’m proud to say I’d never heard of. It’s a strange but true fact that unisex lavatories are only found in dodgy nightclubs (so I’m told) and on aeroplanes. Make them half-and-half and the women would be queuing back to the cockpit…
3 MEGALOPOLIS – GALOP (a dance) + O (’round’) in MILES* to give an ugly word for an ugly concept (‘an urban complex, usually comprising several large towns’); I bet Stoke-on-Trent never called itself one.
4 GUINEA PIG (6,3) not (7,3) as given in the Times Crossword Club – GUINEA + PIG (mass of metal) giving ‘first to use’.
5 PRESTON – I was wanting this to be POTSDAM , for which I began thinking up some pretty creative clues; sadly, it turned out to be only the town besides the M6 best known for the great Sir Tom Finney and its plastic pitch.
6 SET-TO – SET + OT reversed for a conflict verbal, physical or both.
7 EYE – sounds like AYE; another that won’t be troubling the list of all-time greats.
8 BADINAGE – BAD+I+NAG+E for a bit of banter; I’m not sure how ‘I caught’ can indicate an enclosure or envelope of NAG, as surely you would need a word with more than one letter to do that job. Maybe I am missing something. Thanks to Zabadak for pointing out that the I is ‘caught’ by BAD NAG.
13 BULLETPROOF – another cryptic definition, where ‘like a shot!’ is deflecting attention from the literal by suggesting that the solution will by an adverb ending in ‘-ly’. Maybe.
15 SPOTLIGHT – POT in SLIGHT.
16 S+WEEEPING
18 TENDRIL – ‘shoot’ as so often in Crosswordland refers to new vegetable growth; TEN + R[ooks] in LID (‘hat’) reversed.
19 SOMALI – SO + MALI[gned].
21 MERGE – G[ang] in MERE.
24 GAS – double definition.

31 comments on “Times 25647 – A little bit of this and a little bit of that”

  1. 47 minutes for a very untidy solve during which I felt I could become bogged down for ever at any time and have to refer to aids, however I persevered and got there without eventually. Didn’t recognise FELLOE (my LOI) although I suspect I have met it before.

    I trust I am not alone in getting error messages every time I do anything in LJ at the moment, though the Retry option seems then to work every time.

  2. Thank you for the blog, ulaca. I am feeling very tired today and found this hard and rather dull work. I gave up about half-way through, which I am sure reflects more on my state of mind than on the puzzle.
  3. So no hold-ups at this end of the world. Didn’t spot the misenumeration at 4dn, just wrote it straight in. So thanks for that Ulaca.

    Also thanks for explaining the background to those CLOGS. A wonderful expression I always thought and worthy of the Parrot Sketch.

    Edited at 2013-12-02 07:50 am (UTC)

  4. An uninspiring puzzle that demanded dogged application rather than inspiration. No real stand out clues. 25 minutes to solve.

    Ulaca, the real tweedy set wouldn’t let me across their estate boundary. I once told the local member of the landed gentry to never forget what happened to Charles 1st!

    Yes, Jack I’m getting “reset” messages every time I try to access the site

  5. 22 error-strewn (but ultimately corrected) minutes, and another contestant with FELLOE the LOI (I found it wheely difficult).
    I think BADINAGE works as BAD NAG, “I” caught (inside), beginning to E(at). Seems to work OK.
    BULLETPROOF did indeed look like there was more to it than just a CD – I assume the “like a shot” simply indicates “such as a bullet”. I spent a while trying to figure out something more complex, but I think “like a shot” is just there to give the impression that it’s more than a straight(ish) definition. Odd.
    TWILIGHT ZONE is too well defined by do-do-do-do for me to think of it straight away as a derelict area, and I didn’t automatically relate OZONE to fresh air, though I see that it’s (loosely” – Chambers) the sort of bracing stuff advertised as available in Skegness.
  6. I considered FELLOE quite early on, but it looked too unlikely. I rather resent the time I wasted trying to think of something better: fifteen minutes of my life I won’t get back.
    Harumph.

    Edited at 2013-12-02 01:34 pm (UTC)

  7. Not a great start to the week for The Times. Their app simply omits the cryptic crossword completely and the printout version has the same misleading lettercount for 4D.

    Am off later for a few days R&R with Mrs bigtone and the dog in jimboland (West Lulworth)

    Edited at 2013-12-02 10:09 am (UTC)

  8. Spent a while typing my post only to have it ditched with an error message by LJ, so will use Word to draft from now on.
    46 minutes, of which the last few were spent finding a match for 11ac _E_L_E and learning a new word.
    Was not happy with OZONE for fresh air – ozone is a smelly, poisonous allotrope of oxygen and far from ‘fresh’ – but if Chambers has it I am obliged to yield.
    I remembered Preston only became a city in 2002 (the UK’s 50th city in the Queen’s fiftieth year) which helped.

    Meant to add, the loos here in France are almost all unisex, except in motorway services, thank goodness.

    Edited at 2013-12-02 10:11 am (UTC)

  9. I actually enjoyed this, even though it took me 50 minutes with quite a time spent of FELLOE. We have had the word previously in 25270, but I convinced myself that the “sound chap” had to be (Alexander Graham) Bell.

    Interested to read the origin of POP ONE’S CLOGS: I’d always thought it derived from taking a dead person’s clogs to the pawnshop.

    1. The Guardian writer does suggest the origin which Ulaca quotes, but I prefer yours. Most ‘authorities’ seem to think it is pawnbroker-related, and it’s definitely a Northern expression. Where they had clogs. Mrs K knew it but I was less familiar with it, being another Dorset-shire boy of non-gentry stock.
    2. Thanks John for identifying the “felloe” puzzle. I knew we’d had the word before and remembered that it gave me all kinds of trouble which is why it stuck.
  10. I struggled with this and ended up using an aid to get 4dn, which I couldn’t see for the life of me. I had precious little else in that corner to help. Is a guinea pig the first to use, or the first to be used?
    It confirmed my feeling that 11 was FELLOE, but I’d been reluctant to enter that originally.

    I liked some of the clues, a few of which had some nice bits of deception, but I wasn’t keen on nonetheless’ for removal of O, and didn’t like the ungrammatical syntax of 1; in the cryptic, NUT is a singular unit, so ‘are’ is inappropriate. There are various ways that setters can get round this problem, but not here.

  11. 24 mins with something like the last five of them spent on FELLOE. I vaguely remember it from the last time it appeared and I probably had trouble with it then as well, and unlike Olivia it unfortunately hadn’t stuck. The incorrect enumeration for 4 dn was also in the paper. I didn’t find this as enjoyable a solve as some others.
  12. Dashed this off without much trouble, other than a trifling 20 minutes spent on mental alphabet run-throughs to settle without any conviction on FELLOE for 11A. Though it appeared in the Times in September of last year, that’s essentially a previous lifetime as far as my memory is concerned.
  13. 9:56 the last bit of which was spent working through the alphabet and deciding that FELLOE must be right.
  14. Threw in the towel after about 25 minutes with 11a missing. I just couldn’t see what was going on and doubt that I’d ever have got felloe.

    A Dutch girl with inflatable shoes once gave me her phone number at a party, but when I rang her the next day…

  15. 28:14 .. wish I could offer a different experience but I can’t. Thought of FELLOE / MEGALOPOLIS early but then spent the last 7 minutes looking for ‘better’ alternatives, mainly because I wasn’t convinced about ‘galop’ as a dance (disappointed to find no mention of Gangnam Style in the Wiki for it, post-solve).

    I couldn’t quite shake the feeling I was walking into a trap.

  16. Ulaca, you have the wrong number in the heading. I think it’s the number from your previous blog.
  17. About 45 minutes, but I had to look up FELLOE at the end, so technically a DNF. I didn’t remember POP ONES CLOGS either, but with all the checking letters in place it couldn’t be anything else. Regards to all.
  18. About an hour, spread over four or five sessions throughout the day. Had to use aids to get to FELLOE, so really a DNF. Rats. Not part of my vocabulary or GK – should it be?

    A bit of a slog, with few really satisfying clues. Currently listening to the serialisation of Dorothy Sayers’ “Nine Tailors” on the wireless, so appreciated the Change RINGERs at 23ac.

    Man’s best friend a LAPDOG? Really? In what universe? One full of FELLOEs, presumably.

  19. I must be a bit of a saddoe, because I actually knew that felloes formed part of a wooden cartwheel. My farming background wasn’t wasted after all.
  20. I thought this was o.k. ‘Felloes’ was no problem for me as my great-grandfather was a wheelwright and some of the terminology remained in the family. I also failed to notice the misnumeration at 4d. Best wishes to Mr & Mrs bigtone and dog for their forthcoming holiday: I have many happy childhood memories of holidays at Durdle Door and visiting the Hardy country around.
    1. Sadly, Mrs bt managed to trip on a kerb (assisted by the dog) in the first 15 mins there and has broken two bones in her foot. Bit of a kibosh on a walking holiday so we are back in the Royal County.
  21. A disappointing 11:27 here, leaving me feeling old and slow. I made extraordinarily heavy weather of several easy clues, including wasting a ridiculous amount of time trying to fit LIFE-SIZE into 9ac and trying (but failing until I had some crossing letters) to remember the answer to the old chestnut at 15dn (SPOTLIGHT). No problem with FELLOE though, which crops up fairly regularly (most recently in No. 25,270, as john_from_lancs has already pointed out).

    An interesting and enjoyable puzzle.

    (tony_from_yorks)

  22. As this is the forum for nitpickers, of whom I am one, the player is a ‘trombonist’, what he plays is the ‘trombone’. I am aware that we all say we are going to ‘boil the kettle’, but surely this is a bit imprecise for a ‘Times’ puzzle. I put the letters in lightly to find that the checkers were indeed justifying the given answer. Pah!
    Geoffrey
    1. I’m guessing that you’re not a member of the Musical Mafia, otherwise you’d know that orchestral musicians are usually referred to by their instruments – as in “First trombones, you’re playing too loudly.” Collins (1986) gives “a person who plays this instrument in an orchestra” as its second definition of “trombone”. It could be argued that the singular is much rarer than the plural with this usage, but the OED’s one citation for this meaning (from Dombey & Son) is “An artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner.”

Comments are closed.