Times 25,716 – Better Late Than Never

I don’t know what has happened to the blog but I’m preparing an emergency one

OK – now done. Sorry it’s a bit sparse. Help needed with 2D please

Across
1 MANITOBA – MANI(TO-B)A; thing=MANIA; perhaps from A=to B;
5 ALL,BUT – A(LLB)U-T;
9 MATRONLY – MAT-R-ONLY;
10 AMALFI – (c)A(l)M-(w)A(s)-L(i)F(e)-I(n);
12 PLAIN,CLOTHES – (hants police l=left)*;
15 LOLLY – LOLL-Y; dough=money=LOLLY;
16 RINGDOVES – RING-DO(V)ES;
18 CUPIDS,BOW – CUP-I’D-S-BOW;
19 SUSIE – S(tockings)-U(nderwear)-S(imple)-I(f)-E(xpensive);
20 GREENSLEEVES – GREENS-LEE-VES(t); old air is definition;
24 APOLLO – A(udience)-POLL-O;
25 A,GOOD,BUY – (do you bag)*;
26 DOTING – DO-TING(e); amended from comments;
27 ADJACENT – A-DJ-A-CENT;
 
Down
1 MEMO – hidden reversed (fr)OM-EM(ployment);
2 NATO – NA (sounds like nay)-TO(sounds like boot); from comments;
3 TROLLEYED – TROLL-EYED; old slang for drunk;
4 BILLIARD,BALL – BI(A-ILL reversed)RD-BALL; bouncer=cricket delivery=BALL:
6 LIMBO – LIM(B)O; B from B(rooks); LIMO is “no mini”;
7 BOLSHEVISM – (b movies)* surrounds L-SH;
8 TWIN,SISTER – TW(INSIST)ER(p);
11 ACKNOWLEDGED – (h)ACK-NOW-L-EDGED; L from (crimina)L;
13 BLACKGUARD – B-LACK-GUARD;
14 CLAPPED,OUT – two definitions;
17 DESDEMONA – (so amended)*;
21 NYLON – steel tower=pylon then change “p” to “n”;
22 ABLE – scoop=BALE then switch first two letters;
23 GYNT – G(leefull)Y-NT;

57 comments on “Times 25,716 – Better Late Than Never”

  1. Jim I think it’s a double homophone of NA as in “nay” or no-vote plus TO as in “toe” or boot someone with one’s Wellies.

    Edited at 2014-02-21 02:20 pm (UTC)

  2. Also Jim I was marked all correct on the Club board with “doting” at 26a, which I parsed as “cook” =”do” plus “ting(e)”. Thanks much for the emergency work. I took 40 minutes over this thanks to a good 10 minute mental block with ABLE. Hope your water has receded – again.

    Edited at 2014-02-21 03:01 pm (UTC)

    1. Thanks to you and speedy anon – blog amended

      Should have said thanks for concern – waters all slowly going down but the coastline is in a real state. Apparently Chesil Beach has nearly disappeared and the cliff face has collapsed at Bournemouth

      Edited at 2014-02-21 02:53 pm (UTC)

  3. Tough puzzle, with most time spent on the NW quadrant. MANITOBA looked likely from early on but I eventually had to submit it without parsing and I still can’t quite see why “perhaps from A” is equivalent to “to B”. Some good misdirection – I managed to solve 4D while thinking that the definition was “bouncer” rather than “Object to pot”.

    Thanks for stepping into the breach, Jim.

    Edited at 2014-02-21 02:09 pm (UTC)

    1. Seems fine to me and in fact quite creative. It just references the phrase “going from A to B”, wholly justified by perhaps.
  4. Thanks for stepping in Jimbo.

    29 mins, but with the last 9 of them spent staring at 24ac where I couldn’t see the definition or the wordplay for the life of me. When the penny finally dropped I gave a notional tip of the hat to the setter as I’d been misled by the TV references in both the definition and the wordplay.

    I agree with the parsing of NATO above, and I had DOTING at 26ac with the same parsing as Olivia.

  5. 29 minutes for a hard but very enjoyable puzzle.

    The anagram at 12 is very good indeed and I loved the troll-eyed drunk.

    I have doting instead of dotant on the basis of tinge. I can’t see, Jimbo, where you get the final T from.

    Oops, sorry, The posts above about doting came in while I was typing/watching the curling.

    Edited at 2014-02-21 02:22 pm (UTC)

  6. Thanks Jim for setting my mind at rest about my last two in. A 20 minute solve of a very enjoyable puzzle – I like a crossword that makes me smile as I solve.
  7. 48.25 but all correct for once and a real struggle to finish with some inspired(lucky) guesses so thanks to Jimbo for the explanations which were much appreciated today. I too had DOTING at 26 – my penultimate – and had no idea how 4d worked (vaguely thinking it was a definition of bouncer!). Even with Jimbo’s explanation I’m still a bit vague on how 1a works. I did like the smooth surface to 17d and the reference to Iago. In fact there seemed to be a lot of lifting and separating needed in this puzzle throughout.
    1. Sorry for delay in response – went to grab some lunch!

      A “thing” is a MANIA – he’s got a thing about it. That surrounds “coming across” TO-B derived from (go) “from a to b” then the definition is “part of N America”. It’s a bit of a stretch in my view but very much sets the tone for a good puzzle

  8. Good puzzle again, imaginative and great surfaces. Almost 90 minutes of fun trying to spot the misdirections. I particularly liked 20 ac.

    Thank you for the blog and thanks to the setter.

    Nairobi Wallah

  9. Well done Jim with the blog.. who should it have been? Jackkt? The diary says “John G,” is that the same thing? Hope nothing untoward has happened to him

    To be honest I didn’t relate to this crossword much. Too tricksy for me.

    1. Thanks for your concern, Jerry, but I’m fine. I had arranged a swap for this week. Many thanks to Jim for standing in at the last moment.

      Edited at 2014-02-21 02:50 pm (UTC)

        1. Yes, huge apologies to Jack and everyone else. I had arranged to cover the blog today, but then completely forgot about it. Mea culpa. Many thanks to Jim for stepping in. Good job too, really, as I didn’t finish. I only checked in to find out what 26 should have been!

          Edited at 2014-02-21 03:50 pm (UTC)

  10. Well over an hour – very difficult, I thought – but enjoyed it all. Well worth the 90 cents today. Got ‘billiard ball’ from the definition, but couldn’t parse it, so thanks for the explanation. Had ‘dotage’ for ages (put in in desperation), until finally saw ‘apollo’ and ‘nylon’.
  11. I was really enjoying this puzzle but seemed to lose contact with it as things progressed. 26ac was a bit of a stretch, 2dn was rubbish (IMHO) and 1ac, even now, remains incomprehensible to me. Did anyone solve it from wordplay alone?

    Edited at 2014-02-21 02:58 pm (UTC)

    1. I solved it from thing = mania and the definition, and then reverse-engineered the TOB part. I don’t have a problem with that though: happens all the time.
  12. A good 45 mins of enjoyable solving. Like Claudia on the Club Board, I can see through The Times app whether I have got it correct (unless as happened recently, the answers are fed in incorrectly) and DOTING it was. COD or even COW 12A.
  13. A DNF for me- found it fiendishly difficult. Some very nice clues and misdirection- enjoyed greensleeves, Apollo and acknowledged. Didn’t like Manitoba- surely only solvable from the checkers. I hadn’t heard of peer gynt, cupids bow, bale for scoop or boiler for bird. I don’t like the trend of increasing GK- am learning things, but rather frustrating- particularly when the cryptic is a bit open ended (gynt).
  14. Another DNF here, but I thought this was a really top class puzzle. No quibbles, though I think I prefer my ‘trolloped’ to the setter’s TROLLEYED!

    MATRONLY with the images it conjured up of Hattie Jacques was perhaps my favourite – even if I never properly got it.

  15. Well done Jim – I was within an ace of suggesting we should all take it in turns to parse a clue.
    1a is a swine, and I think “from A TO B” is what the setter must have intended, but I’m not impressed. Entered from checkers and “part of N America”.
    Loved the “Programme targeting satellite” definition at 24, once disentangled from the rest of the clue. When will we see the like of Apollo again?
  16. Oh and I was trying to work out the link between stole and edged at 11d, and was just about to add it to my list of 19th century thieves’ slang words when I twigged. It’s as in “stole over the line”, isn’t it?
  17. Thanks for stepping in Jim. I knew Jack had swapped today, but didn’t think to check that it had all gone according to plan.

    Around 20 mins for me, although about 3 or 4 of those were spent at the end trying to justify ABLE (got there eventually), but I also put MANITOBA in without parsing.

  18. 25m. I loved this. There were a number of clues where I was completely stumped and convinced that there must be something hopelessly obscure going on, only to see the answer hidden in plain sight. The best kind of clue.
    Lots of very cunningly hidden definitions requiring careful lifting and separating:
    As good as gold
    Old air shelter
    Programme targeting satellite audience
    Object to pot boiler
    turning up to it
    I even liked 1ac.
    Bravo setter, and thank you.
  19. I agree with keriothe, in loving this although feeling utterly stumped at times. LOI was ABLE, very clever, but scoop=bale is not immediately compelling. I also send thanks to the setter, and a special commendation to Jimbo. About 45 minutes all told. Regards.
    1. I agree, that’s a bit Mephitoish, but I didn’t mind it because that’s not where the main difficulty lies. The difficulty comes from seeing that you have to separate “up to it” as the definition. Hiding a definition that well in a clue where the answer has four letters and there are only three words that fit (OBOE and ABBE being the others) is quite an achievement.
    2. I suppose that I eventually connected scoop and bale through the watery concept
      of baling out, a process that I hope that jimbo is not having to use.

      PS not ABYE?

      Edited at 2014-02-21 07:09 pm (UTC)

      1. Yes, I think that’s what it means.
        ABYE is an archaism. Clueing a Mephisto word with a Mephisto word would be, well, Mephistoish.
        1. Yes, bale as in baling out is what I thought of, but doesn’t match up with ‘scooping out’ too well. But yes, I agree the beauty of the clue was ‘up to it’. Best.
          1. The first definition of “scoop” in Chambers – as a verb – is “to bail out”, which I guess lets the setter off. Chambers seems a bit confused as to when to use “bail” and when to use “bale”, but I won’t worry about that. If we let dictionaries tell us how to use language we are getting it the wrong way round.

            Edited at 2014-02-22 12:44 am (UTC)

  20. I nearly finished this one. An enjoyable 4 hours. I’ve got to go to work next week so I won’t have that luxury again.
    (I’m a re-beginner. Yesterday’s was my first crossword in ages.)
    I couldn’t parse Manitoba, NATO or Billiard ball but guessed them from definitions. I didn’t get Doting, Apollo or Able.
    I really enjoyed the hidden definitions.
    A.
    1. Welcome back to the wonderful world of…!
      But what a puzzle to come back to! Does your journey to work give you the opportunity to solve? There are many, many days when the task is much easier than today’s, but I trust no less satisfying.
      1. Thanks. I think that this is exercise that my mind needs and just as I find time for the gym I should make some time for this.
        A.

        Edited at 2014-02-21 10:46 pm (UTC)

  21. Another clockwise solve starting at the NE, starting with the tragic Duchess of AMALFI and ending up in the NW with the formidable MATRONLY Hattie Jacques. Got dreadfully stuck in the NW, so kept putting it down and coming back to it at odd times, possibly over an hour in all. Technically DNF as couldn’t parse MANITOBA, GREENSLEEVES (unless “greens” are places), or ACKNOWLEDGED (totally missed the “cockney” ‘ack for hack). Loved TROLLEYED and BILLARD BALL, also the economy, wit and sheer devilry (up to it) of ABLE.

    Didn’t particularly like DOTING. Yes, I know about dotage, but “doting”, for me, means fond. Purely a personal thing.

  22. DNF. Ill blame being in California where the puzzle appears at 4pm (now I appreciate the difficulty of the HK and Antipodes contributions), but I suspect I was just being dense. Lots of words and phrases just on the edge of my knowledge or vocabulary (troll eyed, all but, ring dove, Cupid’s bow) combined with some very clever cluing made me pleased with what I did figure out.
  23. What is the derivation of stole/edged? Is edge slang for steal, or something else? Thx

    Edited at 2014-02-21 09:54 pm (UTC)

    1. Amongst various definitions, Chambers has steal meaning “to pass … gradually …” and edge meaning “to move gradually”, e.g. “He stole up on us without a sound”. So in this case it’s steal that has the less common meaning rather than edge.
    1. The 3rd Peer Gynt link will be familiar to anyone who spent too much of the 80s playing Manic Miner.
      1. I was more of a Jet Set Willy man myself. Or rather a Jet Set Willy boy.
        I suddenly feel rather old.
          1. Sorry, but I feel pretty young myself, despite confessing to being a child of the early 50s

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