Times 25661: Curate’s 26

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 20:29

This includes a minute or so knowing the obvious answer to 8dn but failing to see the bleeding obvious. If you didn’t have to parse as you went, you probably wouldn’t bother I guess. Easier than yesterday, I’d say. But still quite a task with a few much appreciated write-ins. Enjoyed this. Or rather … looking at it with relief once finished.

Across

1. COMUS. CO (firm), MUS{e}. Κῶμος, god of revels and related events.

4. ALPHA MALE. E, LAMA (reversed) after ALPH (the sacred river, in Coleridge’s famous poem).

9. NEW LABOUR. Pretty obvious. The def is the dubious “left brand”.

10. MICRO. M1 (motorway), CRO{w,d}.

11. INTERN,ATIONAL. Anagram of “Laotian”. There were four of them between 1864 and 1936. Slightly to the left of 9ac.

14. TOAD. A (area) inside TOD (proverbial fox). Mr Toad, the famously bad driver from The Wind in the Willows.

15. ROTISSERIE. ROTI (bread), anagram of “rises”, E (east, point). Always assumed this was a cooking device; but apparently also an eatery.

18. NETTLESOME. NET (bring in), TOME (book) inc LES (today’s arbitrary boy).

19. KNOT. A sure candidate for omission in the bad old days when we did such things. A favourite wicket-keeper; always good for a laugh.

21. ACCIDENT-PRONE. Anagram: pair connected.

24. LIT,RE. Fewer than two pints? If “pint” isn’t a count noun I don’t know what is. I’ve counted hundreds of them.😊

25. NONPAREIL. NIL, containing ON (cricket side), PAR (level) & E (English). — A rather ironic surface in the current context. Is there a N-OFF-PAREIL?

27. PERSEVERE. The conspicuous anagram of “reserve” rather gives it away. But the def is nicely hidden: solider on.

28. EAGER. G{rapevin}E inside EAR.

Down

1. CON(SIS)TENT. MI6 are the Secret Intelligence Service.

2. MAW. The M & A from “meat”, W (wide … maw cricket).

3. STA(I)RS.

4. ANOMALOUS. MONA (today’s arbitrary gal) reversed, A, L (loch), O (old), US (American).

5. PARSI. Reverse the last two of “Paris” — though it’s possible to read it the other way round.

6. ADMONISH. MON (Scots for “man”) inside A DISH.

7. ACCELERANDO. Anagram: caldera once.

8. ETON. My parsing nightmare. First justified it as E (“CollegE” close), TO and, strangely, N for “Norfolk”. Then I saw the hidden answer. Read this as: the words “close to Norfolk” house (contain). Tip: if it’s your last and you can’t see why, it’s probably hiding in the clue.

12. TOAST,MASTER. Where TOAST = “history”. As in “If you go on missing hidden answers, McText, you’re toast”.

13. BE{a}ST,SELLER.

16. IMMANENCE. 1, MAN inside MEN, CE (church). A write-in for Theology 100 students.

17. BLACK EYE. LACKEY inside BE (live).

20. OP,I,ATE.

22. DONNE. DOE (♀ deer) including 2 x N (new). Not, as I first thought, DA(N)TE!

23. FLAP. Two defs.

26. EG,G. From the expression used in the posh classes: “Cholmondeley-Smythe is a jolly good egg, what?”

NB: emoticon added on edit at 24ac.

46 comments on “Times 25661: Curate’s 26”

  1. For once I’m not going to parade my ignorance by listing all the words, shades of meaning and references I simply didn’t know or get. Fared even worse on this than on yesterday’s where at least I managed to complete 3/4 of that before coming unstuck. Today I managed barely half of it and then battled for every answer. The final ignominy was not even spotting the hidden word at 8dn.
  2. Thanks for the blog, and putting it up so early for the amusement of the insomniacs.

    I assume that you are joking about a litre being “‘fewer’ than 2 pints”.

    Did we have MI6 = SIS recently?

  3. Have to agree with killary that ‘litre’ as a measure, which it is, primarily, is less than two pints. Actually, fewer than two pints wouldn’t make a lot of sense, as you’re really only left with one: ‘I want fewer than two pints, guv’. Hardly, methinks.

    Putting that aside, in my own capacity as solver, I was in Kevin Pietersen mode, quick (by my standards) but slapdash, having one stop on me and spooning up a catch to mid on with ‘mew’ and then completely misreading the line and being clean bowled by ‘starry’ at 3dn. I should have learned my lesson when I received a scare early in my dig, writing in ‘alar’ at 23dn before reviewing and getting a reprieve.

    We had PERSEVERE not so long ago clued in a similar fashion.

  4. ta mct,
    can see the error of my ways.
    Fell into the Dante trap – DATE for female + N, no doubt “the girls” won’t be lured into the same error.
    Ah well, there’s always tomorrow.

    Re LITRE – I’ve got a 3 litre Bitburger stein, souvenir of my time working at the EEC Centre de Calcul in Luxembourg. Only used once a year, on my birthday.

    1. Wow! My biggest stein is a two litre Bamberger Kaiserdom number. Now used only as an occasional vase. It would contain fewer than two pints if I used it for beer.
  5. Not sure what to make of this one, dozing at intervals during play in preparation for watching Spurs do the same tonight. Somewhere over 20 total. Putting PATISSERIE initially at 15 didn’t help my cause even if it did have a bready connection. I was also discomknockerated by the rather vague identifications of Dickens as a best seller and Donne as a writer.
    How nice to have another potential Christmas cracker today at 10. Why do you call your rather large black bird Tiny? Altogether now…
    I liked the misdirection at 27, Soldier at the beginning so much demanding a word starting PARA- and the excellent anagram for ACCIDENT PRONE.
  6. 24.31 but with a careless latte for litre. Stuck with undo for ravel for a time (the old use). Some neat twists but rare definitions, such as maw as jaws and not stomach. Now to the less serious business of Xmas presents.
  7. Not so turgid as yesterday and thus a more enjoyable 25 minute solve. Wasn’t convinced that “squashes” was quite right at 14A but a minor point when “dangerous driver” has to be TOAD. I liked 27A but ETON has to head the parade. I wrote it in lightly from definition but didn’t see the hidden word until considering the clue at the end – superbly clued.
  8. 33min: took a while to get started – only a couple of the acrosses in the first 7 minutes, but the downs proved easier, and having checkers let me finish in reasonable time, though without parsing some of the clues, so thanks for the explanations.
  9. 25 mins and I found this one a bit chewier than some of you seem to have done.

    I wasn’t helped by entering an incorrect first answer, “bind” at 19ac. It was only when I saw the anangram for ACCELERANDO that I knew it had to be wrong. I also had “brass” for “bread” in mind at 15ac and started to write in “brasserie” until I realised I was a letter light. In short, there was a lot of crossing out.

    Count me as another who didn’t see the hidden element of ETON, and like vinyl1 I was thinking the wordplay must have been referring to a country house I was unaware of. My excuse for such foolishness is that the way the clue is written “houses” would surely be more correct grammar than “house”.

    ANOMALOUS was my LOI after I finally saw the definition for NEW LABOUR.

    1. I seem to recall Anax once commenting on this sort of syntax. If you view close to Norfolk as a series of letters (c,l,o,s,e,t,o,n etc) rather than a phrase then you’re dealing with a plural so house is valid.
  10. Somewhere in 1984 (the book, not the year) there is a rant by a character who is upset that Airstrip One has gone metric, because half a litre of beer isn’t enough, but a litre is two much; whereas a pint is just right. I generally agree, except when I’m abroad, and you tend to think “When in Rome (or even better, Munich)…”

    Anyway, moving away from the stein, an enjoyable 17:10, and just to prove that no two solvers are the same, NEW LABOUR was my last in, proving there’s nothing so obvious that some idiot won’t fail to see it and wonder to himself for ages what NEW FAVOUR might be. Possibly because I took so long to see it, I thought “left brand” was a very nice playful definition myself. We definitely agree about Alan Knot(t) though.

  11. I don’t even think there’s a pareil in English – another of those words where the negative version is the only one that (which? – curse this pesky grammar stuff) works.
    And again, in appreciation of some splendidly creative blogging, congrats to Mct for getting both Greek and symbol fonts into play, even if the emoticon doesn’t show up (at least on my screen).
  12. 23m. Quite chewy this, and very enjoyable. There were a few quite loose definitions but also lots of good stuff.
    I wrote in 17dn BLACK EYE from the definition and seeing that “live without” must be “lack”. As someone said the other day it’s lucky we don’t have to show our workings.
  13. Had lots of problems with this one. Got 1dn and 22dn wrong (Confirming/Dante) and couldn’t get Toastmaster, Toad and Parsi.
    Question marks over Micro and Litre. Thanks mctext for explaining those.
    Thought Egg and Perservere were super clues but COD to Eton (which I put in from definition/E??? and was mystified how the clue worked).
  14. Struggled with this, taking some time to get going. Thank goodness for 7, which gave me a lot of letters early on, but I threw myself off course by entering PATISSERIE for 15, like somebody else above. A full hour to complete.
    I thought 27 and 8 were excellent clues, and ‘bring in’ for NET in 18 was very deceptive.
  16. Another 30m DNF. Thanks for blog – I need it on about half of the clues. Just hope for better tomorrow! Not helped today by DANTE and SNAG as well as general ignorance of foxes, kitchen equipment and drunkenness. Sigh! Time for a drink methinks.
  17. Over 30 minutes on the chronograph but I’ve no real idea what the time would have been if I’d had fewer/less interruptions where I forgot to stop the clock. Probably well over 20 minutes so this was pretty tricky.

    I did spot the hidden at 8 (wahey!) but only because, with 8 and 14 unfilled, and EWOK not looking too likely at 8, I realised there hadn’t been a hidden so I went looking for it.

    Joint COD to persevere and toastmaster.

    If I were drinking beer by the pint glass then I’d go with fewer, but if I were drinking out of one of the aforementioned steins I think I’d be tempted by less (although in real life I’d have more/greater than two pints). I can’t work out what would apply if the beer in question were Cropton Two Pints.

  18. Definitely in the ‘less’ camp in the particular circumstances the clue appears to conjur, and one of the best clues in an entertaining puzzle. The hidden was very evil indeed – I was had there too – and the subtle grammar much appreciated.

    My time much better than yesterday’s, at around 28 minutes, but I was cheered on by some nice and often quite insane imagery in this good Wednesday work-out.

    +++ thanks to those at the helm.

  19. 34:04 Not Out, but another attritional innings on a wicket with hidden devils. Last in: NEW LABOUR (you’re not alone, Tim).
  20. Mctext to the rescue for me today. Pleased to see it was a tricky puzzle for others – thought I was on an off day (now that should be a cricket reference for the setters!). As for the litres/pints debate – could we take this forwards to Saturday’s shindig in Holborn?
    Cheers!

    Edited at 2013-12-18 04:14 pm (UTC)

  21. Another tricky puzzle.

    Glad I was in good company in failing to spot the hidden ETON. It went in correctly solely because it fitted the cross-checkers and I couldn’t think of the name of any other well-known college that has only four letters. Alas, I was among those who came to grief at 22D with DANTE instead of DONNE, my parsing being the same as keef-lawrence’s above. I’d like to think we could claim it as a valid alternative reading but I always knew, if I’m honest, that the N couldn’t be justified as an abbreviation for “news”. No doubt “news”=NN is an old chestnut of a device, but was new to me.

    TOASTMASTEr was top-notch and chuckle-worthy with it.

  22. Started with the insomniacs, continued with breakfast, and had to admit defeat about cocktail time. That would be one or two pint time I think.

    Apropos 27a, today’s Americanism is the not-frequently-used verb “to soldier” — which means to laze about and avoid work, deriving from the Navy’s view of the infantry they had to transport. I think it is one of the few words which has two opposite meanings (or at least comes close a depending upon whether the “on” bit is necessary to the persevere sense).

    Edited at 2013-12-18 06:36 pm (UTC)

  23. I don’t know when it was last referenced here so I thought I’d give a plug to a handy resource page from this blog, 2008. It could probably do with an update, nonetheless it’s very interesting reading. I came across it in my labours as self-appointed crossword editor (!), for which almost anyone would be better qualified.

    http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/174088.html

    It can also be found through the ‘Tips&Tricks’ tag in the right-hand sidebar, a facility we seem to have neglected.

    p.s. The TfTT Christmas Turkey, out this Friday, may not entirely, altogether conform to the standards laid out in the above.

  24. This one took a while. Was about to scribble in DANTE but having been chided before by sotira for being bourgeois, I paused and got it right. I have today learned that ROTISSERIE can be an establishment rather than the equipment in it.

    Cannot wait for Friday’s Christmes Turkey!

    Edited at 2013-12-18 06:57 pm (UTC)

  25. My first comment! I’d just like to say how much finding this blog has enhanced my enjoyment of the Times crosswords over the past couple of months. One can really learn from the experienced, bright and witty solvers on this site.
    Today, like so many, ‘Eton’ was not only my last one in but left pencilled in the margin of my paper copy. I misdirected myself by thinking e (last in college) – to – n for Norfolk, definition ‘house’ because I was quite prepared to believe that Etonians call their school/college ‘House’, just as members of Christ Church at Oxford, which has strong Etonian connections, do. The NE corner was also the most troublesome for me as I though the definition for 4ac was sacred river, not being a confident male myself!
    No time, as I always try to solve in a number of shortish sittings.
    Finally, I don’t mean to be fully anonymous, but I couldn’t work out how to allocate a name without joining a social media site.
    1. Hi, Anon. Welcome to the club. I cannot remember quite how I joined but with luck, George Clements will read this. I know that George had the same concern before he joined and I hope that he can confirm that his joining has not proved to be a social media disaster..
    2. As an interim measure you can just put a name at the end of your anonymous postings, as in “William from Hastings” or The Venomous Bede, and then it’s not anon. Still it’s nice to have a recognizable name and an avatar, however unlikely. Except for a brief period when I was getting messages from “Russian Lover” I’ve had no trouble from unwanted contacts on this site. You can make your settings conform to your privacy wishes. I don’t do social media either.
  26. Hugely enjoyable solve today, with all the pieces slotting together like well crafted carpentry, and no NETTLESOME niggles. (Definitely NOT a curate’s egg, where the parts that aren’t excellent stink out the parts that are.) Completed in various times and places over West London this afternoon, in about half an hour – would have been quicker, but got fixated on thick ear rather than BLACK EYE.

    Wide-ranging literary allusions today, from Wind in the Willows and Beatrix Potter to Milton, Coleridge and DONNE – not to mention the good EGG, calling to mind Fink-Nottle and his chums! Not linking OPIATE to the sacred river was, perhaps, a missed opportunity.

    We’ve had all sorts of trots and reds and fellow travellers recently, now it’s the turn of NEW LABOUR cheek by jowl with the INTERNATIONAL – are the setters trying to tell us something?

  27. Catching up on a week’s worth of crosswords in one go (not sure if that is advised), this was near the end of a massive ADHD-solving session and I have scribble everywhere, though in the end I got there – didn’t recall SIS but it had to be there, took forever to tease out ROTISSERIE and BEST-SELLER. ALPHA MALE was a top-notch clue!
  28. Was excited to finish in 15 minutes without appreciating all the parsing, but sadly I’d fallen for the dante trap (politically incorrect though it would have been). Could someone please explain 5 down- Paris becoming Parsi involves just an ‘s’ going north rather than ‘is’ doesn’t it? Very enjoyable- liked the toastmaster and alpha male clues.
    1. I think it’s that the whole IS now runs south to north. Interesting that with only two letters,the two interpretations are the same.
  29. I thought this a very fine puzzle, taking me about 40 minutes, ending with finally seeing the hidden ETON. I was utterly misled by the ‘close to Norfolk’ device, assuming I was looking for something starting or ending with a K. So an enjoyable solve but, coming here I see, aarrgh, I fell in the DANTE trap. Rats. Good one setter, and regards to all.
  30. Great help – have only just started solving Xwords again after a long break – nice to see a left-handed telecaster!!
  31. Apologies for the late posting, but I got caught up with other things yesterday evening, and forgot.

    11:39 here, which I wasn’t too disappointed about despite getting held up at the end by TOASTMASTER (nice clue) and ETON (until I at last spotted that it was hidden). An interesting and enjoyable puzzle.

  32. …by ROTISSERIE, which I didn’t know could be an eatery (=forgotten since last time it appeared). Vague memories of a COMISSARIE? No such word. As an aside, there’s virtually* no such thing as an Indian restaurant here in Perth, so the likes of ROTI/NAN/CHAPATTI/VINDALOO/TIKKA are known only from watching British sit-coms 40-odd years ago, and from crosswords.

    Also in the DANTE crowd, ignorance of literature allows DONNE only as a poet; and also missed ETON but it had to be.

    Otherwise a nice crossword, 25 mins for the DNF.
    Rob

    *A google confirms there are Indian restaurants, but they fly below the radar, never visited.

    1. Oh, and FEWER was corrected to LESS in the clue for 24 ac by the time this crossword reached Oz. Tacit confirmation the setter/editor got it wrong.
      Rob

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