Times 25,666 No Sex Please – It’s Nittel Nacht

Greetings on Christmas Eve. The 24th December has seen a variety of events over the years, not least the arrival of Apollo 8 at the moon in 1968 which gave rise to that iconic picture of the earth. It is also associated with some slightly strange practices such as the Italian Vigilia di Natale Feast Of The Seven Fishes and a day of celibacy for those of the Jewish faith who recognise Nittel Nacht.

This is a gentle but pleasing puzzle that should not cause too many problems.

A happy Christmas to one and all

Across
1 NOTIONAL – newspaper=national then change “a=area” to “o”; like NORAD tracking Santa;
5 CICADA – C(ommon)-I-CA(na)DA; large flying insect, eaten in many parts of the world;
10 TOPIC – T(OP)IC(k); not sure if Mark featured as a topic in first ever radio broadcast on this day in 1906;
11 HERODOTUS – HEROD-OT-US; the “slaughter of the innocents” is a myth but Herod did kill his own sons;
12 REPRESENT – RE-PRESENT;
13 VEDIC – VE(r)DI-C; Sanskrit used to write the Vedas;
14 SEATTLE – SE(A)TTLE; lovely city where I slept very well;
16 ON,DUTY – two meanings; from this day in 1943 Ike was as Supreme Commander;
18 DETAIL – LIED reversed contains TA=Territorial Army;
20 BRAILLE – BRA(ILL)E; the first binary form of writing created by Louis Braille in 1837;
22 BLAST – B-LAST; to wear well is to last; what ceased for a while 24th December 1914 at Ypres;
23 SPIT,IT,OUT – SP(I-TIT)OUT;
25 INDULGENT – (tunnel dig)*;
26 TETRA – hidden T(r)E(n)T-(a)R(e)A; colourful fish often found in an aquarium;
27 THRUSH – TH-RUSH; pretty song birds;
28 BLACK,EYE – BLACK=dirty EYE=watch; shiner is slang definition for feature sported by John Cleese, Jamie Oliver, et al;
 
Down
1 NATURIST – (is truant)*; as seen on the Queen’s Estate at Holkham, Norfolk;
2 TOP,UP – TO-PUP;
3 ORCHESTRA,STALLS – band=ORCHESTRA (really?) – STALLS; the very front seats in the auditorium;
4 ATHLETE – (heat)* surrounds LET;
6 INDIVIDUALISTIC – (suit civilian did)*; true of General George Patton born 24th December 1923;
7 ANTIDOTAL – ANT-I-DOT-A-L; neede to counter the KKK formed 24th December 1865;
8 ALSACE – A-L(S)ACE; Eastern France bordering Germany;
9 GROTTO – GROTT(y)-O; marketing name for a hole in the ground;
15 ALEXANDER – A-LE(X-AND)ER; war lord Alexander of Macedon 356BC-323BC;
17 TEST,CASE – Match=TEST (cricket); box=CASE; then split into two words;
19 LASHES – L-ASHES; more cricket; Ava Gardner born 24th December 1922 had long ones;
20 BRISTOL – B-R-(IS TO)-L; “Bristol Fashion” derives from the floating harbour developed 1803 to counter the large tidal movements encountered in Bristol harbour and is not connected to Ava Gardner’s other assets;
21 OBOIST – hidden O(n)-B(roken)-O(ld)-I(nstrument)-S(ounds)-T(errible);
24 OUTRE – OUT-RE;

33 comments on “Times 25,666 No Sex Please – It’s Nittel Nacht”

  1. Nice blog, Jim.

    Yes, easy today except it took me ages to get 17d. Best mate? Heat wave? Quite a lot of options until finally I managed to parse it..

  2. One missing for me today (Tetra – unknown and I looked it up in Bradford’s). My only query was Test Case for which I couldn’t decipher the cryptic and put it in tentatively from the Suit/Case link. Thought Athlete was an expecially good clue.

    Excellent blog Jimbo. I liked your Christmas Eve references and the iconic earthshot.

    Happy Christmas to you and everybody else at TfTT!

    Daniel

  3. 29 minutes plus another 6 needed to solve 17dn. But I got one wrong because I forgot to revisit the wordplay at 18ac to look for something better than DERAIL which sort of works if you don’t think about it too much.

    Not sure I understand 9dn (the comment about a marketing term is lost on me), but if the idea is that looking at a hole from above one sees an O I would point out that not all holes are round – as confirmed by Bernard Cribbens’ bloke in a bowler hat.

    Merryt Christrmas!

    1. It’s a down clue so I took it to be an attempt at an “& lit”

      The marketing reference is my cynical take on how to turn what is after all just a hole into a tourist attraction – give it a sexy name

      1. Thanks, Jim. I think it’s a bit tenuous whichever interpretation is the right one so I wonder if it’s neither and we’ve both missed something. Grotto on Christmas Eve should surely conjure up kindly thoughts of Santa and his elves rather than the cynical exploitation of tourists – not that the two things are mutually exclusive of course! Perhaps someone will come up with something better.

        Edited at 2013-12-24 10:10 am (UTC)

  4. 11:25 so pretty gentle despite Vedic being unknown and Herodotus not being exactly the first Greek I think of.

    Is grotto supposed to be an &Lit then? I couldn’t for the life of me see where the O came from without hole doing double-duty.

    What I found odd in this puzzle was the preponderance of sort of location indicator words in the wordplay:
    needs in 1a
    but remaining in 10
    breaking and travelling in 18
    viewed in 20a
    just wanting in 2
    need and needing in 6&7
    appear here in 20.

    Thanks for the informative blog Jimbo and as Bing Crosby says, mele kalikimaka to all.

    1. Wasn’t it Bing and the Andrew Sisters?

      Interesting point about the location words – hadn’t noticed it until you drew attention

      See my comment above about the down clue for GROTTO

  5. 9m, but with HERODITUS. It can be dangerous when you think you know how to spell things.
    I was puzzled by GROTTO but figured it was an attempt at an &lit. Last in TEST CASE after a bit of head scratching.
    Happy Christmas everyone.
  6. Thanks for the blog Jim. The marketing reference to 9D was also completely lost on me but I scribbled GROTTO in from the wordplay. LOI 17D.

    Merry Christmas all.

  7. Another struggler with “test case” here. 19.50.
    Thank you for the lovely moon pic Jim. What fools these mortals be.
    “Tetra”, like opah (another aquarium fish I believe) is standard NY Times crossword filler, along with words like erne, anent and olio, only found in crosswordland.
    I don’t know if we get a puzzle tomorrow, so in the spirit of the blog, here is Washington crossing the Delaware on December 25th 1776.
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware_by_Emanuel_Leutze,_MMA-NYC,_1851.jpg
    Merry Christmas to all.
  8. ME too, 19 minutes without understanding GROTTO. My aquarium has a couple of tetras being terrorised by the gourami. Merry Christmas all.
  9. 19 mins but at least no stupid mistake today.

    I struggled in the NE because it took me much longer than it should have done to see HERODOTUS and it took me a while to decode the long anagram at 6dn. ANTIDOTAL was my LOI after ON DUTY because I had been looking for something more specific.

    Merry Christmas to you all.

  10. 31 minutes. Thanks for the picture Olivia: strangely moving, given one’s present-day tendency to see a touch of sentimentalisation in the sentiment. Entertaining and informative blog Jimbo. In cicada I suppose “originally” applies to “common” and “in”; and I’d say in grotto the O is a hole (likely to be natural and not with sides) and the whole (gawd) an &lit. Happy Christmas all.

    Edited at 2013-12-24 11:28 am (UTC)

    1. “i'” is a form of “in”. A bit Mephistoish perhaps but you will come across here in the daily
      1. I don’t recall it in the daily though I’m sure you’re right. But “originally” as applying to both succeeding words seems the more natural take to me. Christmas angels dancing on the point of a needle.
  11. Nice blog today, and isn’t it also the eve of Newton’s birthday? Nice picture of the other Great Man, Olivia; I’d forgotten that they had Christmas traffic even then. Things are looking up: this went quickly, except for GROTTO which I didn’t understand and TEST CASE which I didn’t finish after running the alphabet, realising how many possibilities there were, and finding none rang which a bell. I feel good when I only have problems with the ones the pros have problems with. I was pleased to get BRISTOL, which I didn’t know, from the wordplay.
    Best Christmases all around

    Edited at 2013-12-24 11:57 am (UTC)

  12. Same experience as Janie – totally befuddled by ‘test case’.

    Sing daan fai lok to one and all!

  13. 30 minutes. Pretty straightforward, though TEST CASE didn’t spring immediately to mind and was the last solve. Like jackkt, I entered DERAIL for 18, thinking that perhaps ‘derail’ could be a noun. I didn’t understand GROTTO either; if it’s an &lit I think it’s a pretty poor one. No complaints otherwise.
  14. 14:37 .. same pattern as most, with the matchbox last in after some puzzlement (and COD for that).

    Thanks for going to extra mile in the blog, Jimbo. I learned at least 3 things.

    Merry Christmas to you and yours, and to one and all.

    p.s. At the last count, the Turkey puzzle had had 557 different visitors, which seems pretty good to me for a (mostly) amateur Christmas production. Well done, all.

    Edited at 2013-12-24 01:42 pm (UTC)

  15. 8:04 – thanks to Jimbo for the blog. Tetra seems to me to appear in more crosswords than fish tanks!

    Seasons greetings to all.

  16. Merry Christmas everyone. Twenty minutes for everything but TEST CASE, which I wasn’t even close to getting until I eventually cheated.
  17. Never heard of “tetra” which was my LOI once I had cracked “test case”. Did not check my time today but around 25 minutes I would guess. Many thanks to all the bloggers and other contributors this year for providing enlightenment when my mind has failed me. Merry Christmas all!
  18. A nice soothing puzzle for Christmas Eve, and an entertaining and informative blog from my second favourite County. If Nittel Nacht is the only day of celibacy for those of the Jewish faith I think I’ll convert (though I’ll also need some rejuvenation).
    1. There’s an old Frankau and Crick number (Let’s Go Wild) which includes the verse:

      Let’s have 365 wives, OK;
      Or 364 I’d say –
      Yes I must have a rest on Christmas Day …
      Let’s go wild.

      I’ve just discovered it’s on YouTube (here), from a 78 recording I grew up with (which probably accounts for … well something anyway). Those inclined to political correctness should probably avoid it.

      1. Hello Tony,
        Many thanks for the link, I enjoyed the song, and also ‘The Preparatory School, the Private School and the Varsity’ at the same place. Having been married to the same wife for coming up to forty years, I think that one is quite enough for me, especially as I also acquired two mothers-in-law.
        I’m missing my morning crossword, so will have to rely on stockpiled puzzles I didn’t have time to tackle when they appeared, but the day has started well otherwise with a newly acquired C.D. of ‘The History of Jazz’ Volume 1 – really cheery stuff.
        I hope that the severe weather has not adversely affected you: for once, the North East has had a relatively easy time of it.
        All best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
        George Clements
  19. This completely defeated me, and I had HEAT HAZE. Well, it might crumple your suit, but that’s about all.
  20. 8:45 here – again slower than it ought to have been for another Mondayish sort of puzzle, but at least a little nearer crypticsue’s time!
  21. Had terrible trouble with this one – largely because I couldn’t find a newspaper in any of the shops in Whitby!

    Humbug!

  22. Started this late on Christmas Eve, after a replete Polish Christmas Vigil feast, twelve courses, and promptly fell asleep! Rattled off the remaining 26 this morning in under twenty minutes.

    TETRA unknown to me, but obvious from the clue. Odd how I find some “long” clues to be write-ins – INDIVIDUALISTIC – and others take time for the penny to drop – ORCHESTRA STALLS. ATHLETE a lovely clue. 1dn surely inappropriate for late December? I suppose it takes all sorts.

    Merry Christmas!

    1. My wife used to work at a hospital in London where ‘orchestra stalls’ was rhyming slang for bits of the male anatomy. Old boys would come in and say ‘I’ve had a bit of pain in me orchestras love’.

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