Times 25,707

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Started slowly, but as I went on I found myself swiftly gathering speed, possibly because this grid is very friendly, thanks to the long clues around each side (assuming you get them, of course…) Meanwhile, thinking of things which gather speed rapidly, I was slightly worried to read that our man Woodsy has taken a tumble in training before Thursday’s big event, though the coach insists he’ll be fine on the day. Still hoping to see him produce what the commentators on the women’s event called “30 metres of pure radness”; I can’t be certain, but I think that’s about as good as it gets. Anyway, this one was 7 minutes of pure crypticness, and another pleasant puzzle on the easy side of things.

Across
1 CZECHOSLOVAK – OSLO in double soundalike [“CHECK”=vet, “VAC”=holiday]. “Old” because it’s now two countries.
8 REORDER – RECORDER minus the key of C.
9 DADAISM – DAIS in (MAD)rev. Famous American painter and photographer.
11 COTERIE – SCOTER I.E. Teals and eiders crop up more often in crosswords, but the scoter isn’t a stranger.
12 SUNDOWN – Lift-and-separate the evening paper; SUN(=”paper”), Democrats, OWN(=”recognise”).
13 SEEDY – SPEEDY minus Piano; have seed cakes come back into vogue as a result of the Great British Bake-Off, I wonder? If not, I think of them as being an old-fashioned sort of tea-time treat.
14 ARTILLERY – TILLER(in this less common definition, a shoot from a plant stem) replaces the teaM inside ARMY(“fighting force”), to give a part of that force. Neat.
16 ILLIBERAL – (BILL I)rev., (REAL)*.
19 MOP UP – i.e. Medical Officer, PUP.
21 NOMINEE – (ON)rev., MINE(=”explosive”), Energy.
23 BALLOON – Large in BALOO, Name. I am now ear-wormed by The Bare Necessities, and hope you are too.
24 LENDING – sLump, ENDING.
25 OBSCENE – Book in [0, SCENE].
26 TRIGGER-HAPPY – one of those cryptic definitions which so divide opinion. Seems fine to me, I should add.
 
Down
1 CHORTLE – CHurch, Other Ranks(=”army members”), (LET)*.
2 ELDERLY – ELDER, LaudablY.
3 HORSEHAIR – cryptic def. requiring the knowledge that horsehair is used in making bows for musical instruments among other things.
4 SIDES – SIDE(=”arrogance”) + Southern. Northern setter today, maybe? A surface which made me think immediately of Jose Mourinho and his poor little horse.
5 ORDINAL – Island in (LANDOR)*.
6 ADIPOSE – A DIP, OS(as in Outsize), exercisE.
7 PROCESSIONAL – (PARISCONSOLE)*.
10 MONEY-SPINNER – where bread=money, of course.
15 TOLLBOOTH – Old LLB(law degree) in TOOTH(“canine”).
17 LAMINAR – (MAIL)*, (RAN)rev.
18 BUNTING – BUN TIN(“cake receptacle”), doG. Back to the Bake-Off again.
19 MILKSOP – i.e. MILKS,OP.
20 PROGENY – GEN in ROY, under Pressure.
22 EAGLE – abovE A GLEn, nice surface.

70 comments on “Times 25,707”

  1. A rare sub-30 minutes for me today. 26 in fact. Didn’t know TILLER and needed the wordplay to come up with LAMINAR, otherwise it was all fairly familiar stuff and very enjoyable.

    Edited at 2014-02-11 01:31 am (UTC)

  2. Forgot to turn on the iPod, still seething about Ulaca’s totally inappropriate singling-out of Tasmanians yesterday. But under the 20, I’d guess.

    LOI was PROGENY … which left me wondering about the names of guys and gals convention.

  3. 20 minutes, with TOLLBOOTH the standout for me. Quite a few where you didn’t need to work out the wordplay, including – correctly, as it turned out – TRIGGER-HAPPY.

    Excellent time, Tim: within your target, I would imagine. I wonder if mine is within mine…

  4. 7:03 … which I think is a PB for me, certainly solving on the computer. Nothing too rad about the puzzle, but plenty of what I believe the Dutch (can they skate, or what?) call Gezelligheid. Nice, cosy surfaces.

    I gather ‘our Woodsy’ is doing the ice bath thing (what else would you do in Russia in winter?) so I’m sure he’ll be fit and ready, if chilly, by Thursday.

    2. Well done Sotira. Your name leaped off the leaderboard today, as if you’d launched an audacious breakaway from your usual position at the front of the peloton.

      Have you been tested lately?

      1. galspray – hey, it was just a cold remedy! And thanks.

        ulaca – if you mean Jason, the answer is no (3:23, which is 20 seconds longer than he took yesterday). If you meant the other youknowwho, Magoo, I haven’t noticed his name on the board for a few days. I suspect he’s at some secret Xtreme Solving Olympic test event, maybe doing an inverted 720 Anagrab as we speak.

        1. Magoo held off from solving yesterday’s puzzle until today, completing it in 4:15 (he probably had to answer a phone call in the middle of it). I expect he’ll overtake Jason before the end of the week though.
  5. Do these ever get blogged? I still have questions about January’s, 20160. Afraid I won’t want to bother with them if there’s a chance I’ll be left in the dark forever about something.

    (As for this daily, it seemed pretty easy. LAMINAR gave me pause, and I didn’t know the definition for “tiller,” and it’s a little hard to believe anyone else did. Ha.)

      1. Thanks for the link! I may have come across this on my search, but the headline is “Club Monthly 20148 January 2013—spot the error” (indeed).
        2. Hmm, I was tempted just to congratulate you for spotting the deliberate error.. but it wasn’t, of course, so I’ve corrected it now, thanks..
  6. Achieved my primary target (sub-30), which is usually good enough for my secondary target. Not today, sadly.

    Panicked when I saw “hymn” at 7D. Panicked further when there weren’t enough letters in the obvious anagrist. Am still panicking slightly about why I could look at the word “console” at least twenty times and still be convinced it was a six-letter word.

    Did I mention those beers I had last night?

    1. Belated birthday wishes! I reckon I still have a bit of residual adrenaline in the system from yesterday, which may have been responsible for the massive gap.

      [‘Usually good enough’. That’s gone in the notebook…]

      Edited at 2014-02-11 07:04 am (UTC)

      1. I’m guessing that’s a pretty big notebook. BTW, did you know that James Faulkner is Tasmanian?
        1. Had to ring IT to get them to increase my storage capacity.

          Some of my best friends are Tasmanian…

  7. Can we please stop the Tasmanian stuff spilling over into another day’s crossword discussion?
    1. Well said Jack. It was boring and purile yesterday – can do without another dose of nonsense.

  8. Wowser! 22m59 today on the laptop, and what is almost certainly a PB.

    DNK TILLER=shoot, hesitated between limanar and LAMINAR, and struggled with the spelling of CZECHOSLOVAK (can’t believe I didn’t see OSLO, that would’ve helped…), but got there all unaided in the end. Also put in SEEDY with a shrug.

    Felt the definitions jumped off the page for the most part, followed by the not-too-tricksy cryptics.

  9. At a PB of 12 minutes, I was expecting quite a few grumbles from others about how the answers were “a write in” and “unsatisfactory” – perhaps they’re still to come?
    I was looking forward to more of a challenge today as well, sitting at home in Somerset, in order to take my mind off the rain lashing at the windows and the view of the increasingly flooded fields the other side of the River Parrett. Fortunately they are the OTHER side of the river from me.
    1. I sympathise. There’s something almost sinister in watching flood waters rise and rise knowing there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it – be lucky
      1. Thanks for your kind thoughts, Jimbo. I’m sure we’ll be OK as we’re on a slight rise – known as “islands” in the old days, for obvious reasons when you realise most of the Somerset Levels are below high tide level.
        Just down the road from us there are now 8 huge portable pumps brought over from Holland to help shift the water from one river to another, which should be in action tomorrow. Ironic, since it was the Dutch that helped drain the Levels in the first place about 3 centuries ago.
  10. I found this even easier than yesterday and was home and dry in 10 minutes. Hardly read a lot of the cryptics (14A for example). Nice enough puzzle but a bit boring in truth
  12. 7:10, which is my fastest ever solve on an iPad. However even adjusting for iPad conditions and the moment when a lady on my train distracted me by resting her newspaper on my head that’s still 12.7 seconds short of my PB.
    I don’t mind an easy one from time to time. It gives one a nice warm glow of smugness to start the day.
  13. A repeat of yesterday. I agree with keriothe that an easy one from time to time has a definite feelgood effect but not if they come up every day.
  14. It must have been easy. Like Jack, I managed a rare sub-30mins. So not surprised to see some of the very fast times posted above. I couldn’t for the life of me find a way to parse ARTILLERY (14A) – thanks for the explanation, Tim – but it hardly mattered because the literal was so obvious. TOLLBOOTH (15D) was neat.
  15. 9 mins. I would have been quicker if I had got PROCESSIONAL straight off but I needed several checkers for it. Too many cryptic definitions for my taste.
  17. Solved in the dentist’s waiting room, so couldn’t have been too difficult. Whilst there, I noticed a magazine from 1933 containing a crossword with the clue “Capital of Czechoslovakia (4)”.

    Actually, I made up the bit about finding the magazine but I was told that this cryptic clue is one of the earliest published.

      1. Indeed – plus it has provided a useful mnemonic for those of us who would otherwise be tempted to put an extra A in the spelling of Czechoslovakia.
  18. I agree with the ‘nice enough’ – 6:04 giving me time to fit in more puzzles before the end of lunch time (yes, I know I’m addicted, but there are worse addictions than cryptic crossword solving).
  19. Hopefully this will not be considered an inappropriate Tasmanianesque comment although it has nothing to do with today’s crossword – can’t seem to concentrate on that somehow.
    Our revered blogger mentioned James’ injury – so the low down is – he was taking off for a practice jump on Friday when an official ran at him with a red flag – too late to stop he crashed and bruised his hip. As Sotira says, he’s been doing the ice bath on and off treatment and will be good to go on Thursday. My concern is more with the weather which is due to be even warmer than at today’s ladies ski Slopestyle event where the landings became really slushy and caused many a crash. Thanks for your support.
      1. Couldn’t agree more. What can be better than getting both the crossword blog and key Olympics news all in one shot. Good luck to Woodsy for Thursday.
    2. Glad to hear that he’s going to be competing. Let’s hope he’s got his bit of bad luck out of the way (bad dress rehearsal, great show), and he’s giving a whole new meaning to “chilling out” with those outdoor ice baths. Maybe the time-out will work out for the best. Everything crossed for him.

      Hope you’re managing to get some sleep, Chris!

    3. As far as I can tell the timings for Thursday are qualification from 06:15-08:00 (GMT) and final from 09:30-10:30.

      Chris, do you have any inside info on where James is in the running order for the quals?

  20. About 30 minutes. A steady solve with no real hold-ups except 11 across which I assumed started with OUT – one up to the setter – and which hampered my getting the anagram at 7 down. Wrote ARTILLERY in from the definition and forgot to check how it worked, so thanks for the explanation. Sub 10 minutes remains a far-off dream for me, I’m afraid.

  21. Re comment deezzaa @ 07:57, an easy puzzle won’t necessarily attract criticism for being a walk-over where the clues are well-written. Plus you’ll hear folks say from time to time, if not all the time, that easy is harder (to create) than difficult. In fact, some of the Grauniad mob infuriate me by trying to invest their clues with difficulty by using either unfair, abstruse or arcane methods to describe subsidiary parts, I mean, gosh, one’s blood almost literally boils. Mind you, this one was a bit too easy for me, could have done with a more tangy morsel.

    Edited at 2014-02-11 01:13 pm (UTC)

  22. 13:10 so nothing to frighten the horsehair donors but not that quick. It took a while to get the top and left hand long’uns so that slowed me for sure. I blame getting my hair cut immediately before solving which has robbed me of my powers.

    Congrats to all the PBers.

  23. I had a slow start, but getting one answer in each quadrant made things fall into place. Didn’t know TILLER, so appreciative of the blog, and didn’t know that meaning of SIDE. I get the same panic when I see ‘duck’ that I get when I see ‘plant’, so was happy to scoot past the scoter.
    1. Plants in particular have always been a real problem for me. Now I have the time, I really should grind through a basic gardening book. As for ducks . . .
      2. I don’t have a problem with ducks: setters seem to resrict themselves to a relatively small number and I think I’ve learned most of them now (including today’s).
        On the other hand it seems to me that quite a lot of setters are gardeners, and as a consequence there are approximately eighty-seven thousand impossibly obscure plant names that they regard as common knowledge.
        We don’t have a chance.
  24. I was hoping this would occupy me for the hour and half bus journey home from Cork this morning, but wrote in the last answer after a mere 20 minutes or so (a good time for me).
    This was the first time I’d attempted a puzzle on a moving vehicle since the horizontal layout was introduced – so much easier than the daft previous layout. So a big thank you to whoever was responsible for this. Now all we need is for the puzzle to resume its ‘proper’ place on the back page (as it is on Saturdays in the Irish edition). Even better if the Times could go back to a broadsheet format, but I’m probably in a minority in wanting this, I think!
    1. I, for one, would be very happy to see the broadsheet format return, but I fear that it’s not going to happen. I think it’s more likely that papers will go exclusively digital: think what it would save on printing, distribution and retailers share of the cover price. I would also love to see a return to broadsheet journalism standards instead of the fatuous features and constant fashion content with outrageously priced ‘luxury’ goods.
      Rant over, let’s hope that crossword standards are maintained, at least in the Thunderer.
      1. I agree with everything you say. I stopped buying The Independent for the very same reasons.
  25. 29.20 here so just about average difficulty for me but a rare treat to have two sub 30m in a row. My main hold up was dubious spelling today (mine not the setter’s of course)with doubts about 1a, 9a and 6d for example. All very dispiriting for an ex English teacher! I appreciated the blog today since as others have remarked some answers could be filled in confidently without parsing. Is that growing confidence of the sover or unsuccessful setting, I wonder? I did have the earworm from 23a and and was sorry the chance to bring another (unfairly) obscure poet was wasted at 18d.
  26. Another romp, though not quite as fast as yesterday’s. 20 minutes, though technically DNF as I couldn’t parse the obvious ARTILLERY and had never heard of the scoter hiding in the likewise obvious COTERIE.

    7dn easier than it initially seemed – I’d already started mentally leafing through the hymnal.

    Funny thing about 16ac. In these post-modern, politically correct times it seems there is no-one so intolerant (=ILLIBERAL) as a professed “liberal”!

    BTW, I hope these “write the obvious solution in first, think/parse afterwards” sorts of crosswords are not going to be the new norm.

    1. If we’re counting it as a DNF when you don’t understand everything then I’m a DNF almost every day. I prefer not to count like that.
  27. Eventually got round to the REAL business of the day and completed in 34 minutes. Would have been quicker if hadn’t had to wait for most of the checkers for ‘processional’, still, I’m pleased with one of my better times.
  28. Quite happy with my time today. How I sympathise with grestyman: since I took early retirement my confidence in spelling, and my accuracy, have plummeted. Studying as an ‘overripe’ student helped a bit, but since that ended the decline has continued, and the spellchecker comes increasingly to my rescue.
    I still don’t like clues like 24a where a letter is indicated by its position in another word in the clue, but they seem to be becoming more commonplace so, as my children say, live with it.
  29. Found this quite tricky, but got there in the end. A few went in without being able to parse (Artillery, Progeny) – thanks very much to topicaltim for making it all clear.
  30. I need to get in and comment earlier – 54 comments already! 12 minutes, everything going in with full understanding, last one in being the LENDING/LAMINAR crossing. Now I need to go back to yesterday and find out about the Tassie bashing (lived there from 92-95)
  31. 13.55 so a rare sub-15. But I’d rather have a harder challenge and get through in 25. Too many gimme clues creeping in I feel.
  33. A disappointing 7:18 for me. I thought I’d been faster, but looking back I spent far too much time trying (and failing) to solve 1ac, 8ac and 7dn at a first read-through.
  34. even for me; but it is good to have a confidence-booster every now and then
    wasted too much time by being determined that 17 was crs and 18’s flagging dog was PANTING
    and just one small issue with 15: isn’t CANINE = TOOTH a dbe?

    JB

  35. Well, as usual I turn up here just as everybody else is heading off. Ah well.

    25 minutesish for me, with which I’m happy. Failed to parse ARTILLERY and COTERIE. “Scoter” was somewhere in the back of my mind, but I didn’t fancy rummaging around through piles of discarded ideals, rusted ambitions and useless medical facts to find it.

    Today’s gorefest was greatly brightened by a sweet child with her head stuck in a saucepan. This is such a clichéd accident that you may be surprised to learn that none of us had ever seen this particular one before.

    In fact, it is really very difficult to get ones head (a large blunt object covered with hair) stuck in a saucepan (a cylindrical vessel with smooth sides). This child had managed it through the combination of considerable force and an unusually-shaped head (“bulbous” would be unkind but accurate).

    You may be surprised to learn that we professionals (as we like to call ourselves in moments of self-doubt) have no more idea of how to remove a head from a saucepan than you do. In the end, we just held the girl down and pulled like crazy on the saucepan, having first explained to the mother that the neck is very strong and would not be damaged by this procedure (we were guessing at that one, to be honest).

    I should also probably mention that the saucepan was not in use at the time of the accident.

    1. I didn’t fancy rummaging around through piles of discarded ideals, rusted ambitions and useless medical facts to find it

      That made me chuckle.
      My brain contains the first two in abundance, and I’m up late cramming it with more of the last (leaving out the medical bit) as I write.
      This forum is always good for a bit of light relief.

    2. I know it’s wrong to laugh at the misfortunes of others, but you do make it very hard not to, B’n’T.

      Don’t stop.

  36. New comer who is trying to figure out how cryptic xwds work.

    5D What provides the straight definition?
    13A How does quiet;y provide piano?
    25A Does love mean ‘O’ ?

    Thanks

    1. The def is “possibly first”, “first” being an ordinal number as opposed to cardinal; p=piano is musical notation, and believe me, you’ll see a lot of it in crosswords – look out for f(loud), ff(very loud), pp(very quiet), and various others I can’t think of right now, not to mention any letter A-G being clued as just “note”; love=zero=0, think tennis scoring. Hope this helps!
      1. Thanks. It’s amazing how much knowledge is needed of unfamiliar subjects to decode clues. It’s impenetrable sometimes.
        Thanks again.

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