Times 25720: Unknown composers and underwear

Author   mctextPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: Close to the hour.

The SE was a terror spent pondering possible composers’ names. Had to look it (or them) up in the end. So you can call this a DNF if you like.

Across

1. CROSSROADS. CROSS (annoyed), and a word sounding like RHODES.

7. GLAD. Take the points of the compass out of “enGLAnD”.

9. INTREPID. IN, T (time), anagram of PRIDE.

10. ICONIC. 1, CONIC. Where the latter is short for “conic section”.

11. STRIFE. “Trouble and strife” = “wife”.

13. OVER,NICE.

14. RUSSIAN DOLLS. Today’s cryptic definition. Pussy Riot?

17. COUNTERTENOR. TENOR (drift, gist) after COUNTER (bar).

20. AQUILINE. A, QUI{p}, LINE.

21. FALLEN. ALL inside FEN (swamp).

22. TIVOLI. I, LOV{e}, IT: reversed.

23. LONGBOAT. LONG (pine) and A (area) inside BOT (the larva of the botfly). Down here, a bot is a cadger.

25. TYKE. Our light inclusive.

26. MYSTICALLY. MY, ALLY with stic{k} inside.

Down

2. RING TRUE. A fine charade.

3. SIR. R (queen), IS: reversed.

4. RUPEE. RUE (regret) inc. PE{as}. “Bread” = money.

5. ANDROID. AND (with) + DIOR (reversed).

6. SNIVELLER. VIN (reversed) inside SELLER. Looked hard to find a reversed RED here.

7. GROUNDSWELL. GROUNDS (used coffee), WELL (very much).

8. APIECE. ACE (serve, tennis) inc. PIE (tart).

12. INSECTIVORE. Anagram: over it’s nice.

15. ALUMINIUM. If the gangster is our AL, he’s the chemical symbol for this metal which, when expanded ….

16. FORESAIL. Anagram: rise alof{t}.

18. TRELLIS. TELL (report) inc. R (last of “mountaineeR”) + IS.

19. EQUITY. QUIT (leave) inside EY{e}.

21. FINZI. “The end” = FINIS. Include Z (unknown) and delete S (succeeded, genealogy). Phew! There were two of them: Aldo (Italian) and Gerald (British). Go ogle.

24. BRA. Couldn’t believe this one, but it’s GARB (clothes) in reverse without the G (no good).

67 comments on “Times 25720: Unknown composers and underwear”

  1. 30 minutes all parsed except the composer, so like you, mct, this was technically a DNF for me. I even thought of “end” = FINIS but no composer came to mind (and I’m supposed to have a degree in music!). Having googled the answer the name rings just the faintest of bells but I’ve never knowingly heard anything he composed.

    Other than that I found this puzzle straightforward but my one gripe is that I think a “?” is required at 23ac as the definition is so wishy-washy.

  2. Like mctext – and many others I suspect – I’d never heard of FINZI (either of them) but at least I got it right through the cryptic.

    At 16dn I don’t think a sail is part of the rigging (nor does the OED).

  3. 24:49 .. got there in the end but, gosh, the SE was a battle.

    I’m embarrassed not to have heard of Gerald Finzi, especially as he lived for a while in a village I thought I knew well and his ashes are scattered on May Hill in Glos., which was the first thing I saw every morning growing up.

    Poignant bio here: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=9691852

    I’ll have to catch up with his cello concerto, which will probably involve my “getting something in my eye” at some point. Cellos always do that.

    Edited at 2014-02-26 03:10 am (UTC)

  4. LOI the composer, member of the “never heard of” club . I took “not having succeeded” as “incomplete”, so had worked on FINIsh, not FINIs, plus Z as first guess for the “unknown” when I looked it up before submitting.

    Ref foresail & rigging – Oxford Online is slightly more expansive in its definition of RIGGING:-
    the system of ropes or chains employed to support a ship’s masts (standing rigging) and to control or set the yards and sails (running rigging)

    Ergo a foresail is part of the (running) rigging, so perhaps a nice bit of mis-direction by the setter by the omission of the adjective “running”.
    But I’m sure we would all expect 99.99% of people to put the blatant anagram in without given it a second’s thought.

    1. I read that differently – the running rigging is “ropes or chains used to control or set the sails”, ergo, the rigging is “ropes or chains” as distinct from sails. There is no question in my mind that sails are not “rigging”.

      On another nautical matter, at 23ac, the Viking ships (which I assume the clue is referring to) were “long ships”. A “long-boat” is the longest of the boats carried by a sailing ship.

      Edited at 2014-02-26 03:36 am (UTC)

      1. ODO has “another term for a longship”. Meant to mention the fabulous Vikings series recently re-screened on SBS. An early episode deals (possibly mythically) with their design.
        1. Can’t argue with that, but it sounds odd and it hasn’t found its way into the OED.

          The idea of “Viking long boats” to me conjures up a picture of a mixture of Hornblower and Noggin the Nog.

    2. I hadn’t thought of this … knowing as much about maritime conventions as I do about obscure composers. But I think Derek (no pun intended) has a point. I saw that def as well and took the bracketed bits to be qualifying the “system of ropes or chains” in two different contexts: (a) supporting the masts, (b) controlling/setting the sails. So … the rigging would not include the sails as such.
  5. No time, as real life intervened at several points today. BOT and TYKE (as a dog rather than a Yorkshireman or a child) both unknown. I rather enjoyed SNIVELLER, which reminded me of Melchett addressing the benighted Darling for some reason. (I was also looking for a RED here – nice misdirection.)

    A couple of nice Finzis to introduce you to his work: Eclogue for piano and strings and Lo, the Full, Final Sacrifice.

  6. I thought it would take a lot longer to finally bring 23ac and 21d to their knees, but I managed to figure out the wordplay in 21; never heard of the composer(s), but ‘The Garden of the Finzi-Continis’ came to mind. 23ac went in on checkers and definition, since, although I probably knew ‘botfly’, nothing of that sort came to mind. I was wondering about rigging, too, knowing nothing about ships. Wikipedia does include sails as part of the rigging, though; but that’s Wikipedia. LIked BRA and COUNTERTENOR.

  8. Spectacular DNF for me today with blanks all over the place. I was so sure ‘harsh criticism mostly’ was ‘bar(b)’, and ‘Bordeau the wrong way up’ just had to be ‘der’. Oh, and the anagram at 12dn was *o+its nice bat*, surely?

    Good puzzle, but I just got too fixated on certain things to change my mindset, convincing myself the answers were going to be obscure words I’d never heard of. Hate it when that happens.

    1. Here’s a tip Janie to get round “fixations”

      Write the clue out on a piece of paper with the individual words listed in a vertical column. Next to each word write one or more synonyms. This will get you thinking along different lines and will help to “lift and separate”


      1. Thanks, Jim, I’ll defo give it a go! I guess that’s easier when you’re not solving electronically…
        1. Don’t worry Janie, I thought BAT had to be part of the fodder as well. I can normally unscramble anagrams without having to re-write the letters somewhere but on this occasion I even wrote the checkers and gaps horizontally with a jumble of the missing letters above. That’s when it screamed “insectivore” as me (it can be very useful to write out horizontally the letters and spaces of any down clue that’s givng you trouble) and I realised I wasn’t looking for an unknown rotating insactibote.
  9. 23’18”, shambling around in the SW for unconscionable lengths of time. It took a long time to realise that COUNTERTENOR was not some obscure variation on castrato – and it’s a perfectly straightforward clue, too. I was trying to use the wrong fodder for the anagram at 12, because over’s just O, ain’t it? TIVOLI was my last in, partly because the Tivoli gardens are in Copenhagen visited by Portillo last night (so nowhere near Rome?) and partly because I seem to be incapable of unravelling a simple cryptic instruction. And “hooters” is owls. Stop sniggering at the back.
    Looking for the J and the K (not to mention the X and, bizarrely, the H) absorbed some misdirected time too.
    On the other hand, I’ve sung FINZI, and am just sufficiently ignorant of nautical niceties not to distinguish between sails and the ropes that support them, or between Viking boats and ships. Mind you, I thought the majority of the latter came from the east, or indeed any direction you were desperately running away from. The ones led by Kirk Douglas came from Lim fjord in Croatia, of course.
    CoD to SNIVELLER, for making me look for RED for too long.
  10. 35 minutes but with one wrong for the third day running.

    Having decided that FINXI and FINYI weren’t composers I plumped for the footballer-cum-composer FINNI.

    Overlooking Z as the unknown may have been more excusable if I didn’t have a Maths degree!

    2. On the contrary, having a Maths degree means that you are justified in thinking that ANY letter could have filled the gap in FIN?I. I was always a fan of k, l, and m as my 3 variables.
  11. A nice one to consume over a relaxed breakfast. 45 minutes, including eating! I’m sure I have come across TIVOLI recently, with almost the same clueing – ah well, new editor still finding his feet. (Edit: To be fair to the editor, it might just have been in a recent Grauniad.) Speaking of new editors, I suppose we shall now be having to put up with more RUSSIAN DOLLS. Sigh.

    I see that the “regulars” are having trouble with music again – after murmurings about Woody Guthrie and Grieg (Peer Gynt), we have now been served Gerard FINZI. Even I own that this one is a tad obscure …

    LONGBOAT more associated with Hornblower and Aubrey than hairy Danes surely? Agree this should have been “longship”. Obscurity for the sake of obscurity is not fair misdirection.

    Hadn’t heard of a “bot” in this context, but couldn’t have been much else.

    FOI TYKE, LOI LONGBOAT, COD to SNIVELLER.

    Edited at 2014-02-26 08:56 am (UTC)

    1. I don’t think the new editor has started yet.

      Re TIVOLI, yes it has come up recently but that puzzle is still “live” so whisper it quietly.

      1. It seems to me it’s relatively frequent that a weekend clue reappears clued similarly in the week. Surely this can’t be coincidence, particularly with a word such as TIVOLI.

        Any ideas why this is the case?

  12. Finzi has I believe come up previously so something must have stuck in the mind. I liked 14A

    Edited at 2014-02-26 09:18 am (UTC)

  13. Similar problems to others with LONGBOAT – very loose and vaguely inaccurate – FORESAIL – just wrong as far as I’m concerned – and the unknown FINZI.

    Are we really going to get a daily diet of RUSSIAN DOLLS – these “clues” really are very irritating unless they’re very well done – which most aren’t

    I also liked SNIVELLER with Bordeaux being used to signal “vin”

    1. I’m pretty sure FORESAIL as part of the rigging is just fine (as keef suggested above). Wikipedia gives “Rigging (from Anglo-Saxon wrigan or wringing, “to clothe”) is the apparatus through which the force of the wind is used to propel sailboats and sailing ships forward. This includes masts, yards, sails, and cordage.”

      I’m a lifelong sailor and this is how I’ve always understood it —describing the whole kit and caboodle — though it can also be used to describe only the sail-setting lines and apparatus. Dictionaries aren’t always great on this kind of thing. The knowledgable Wiki article further states “In this article, ‘Rigging’ denotes the full set of cordage, sails and spars, except when it is part of another term (see running rigging and standing rigging).” Sailing terminology outdoes cricket for wilful perversity.

      1. Not so sure sotira. For the purposes of an explanation, a writer can do a Humpty Dumpty and define a word to mean precisely what the writer wants, so that there is no confusion later in the explanation.

        Am reminded of the old one

        Q : How many lines does a fully-rigged three-masted schooner need?

        A : None. It is fully-rigged.

        1. OK, I’ve just emailed the question to a former merchant navy skipper and a retired Royal Navy captain! I’ll let you know if they get back to me today.
          1. I suspect that we are not going to all agree on this. The Shorter OED defines Rigging (a noun and the word in the clue) as 1. The action of equipping a vessel etc 2. The ropes or chains employed to support the masts (standing rigging) or to work or set the yards, sails etc (running rigging). Rig on the other hand (but not the word in the clue) is indeed the arrangement of masts, sails etc on a vessel.

            Does The Times like other crosswords specify a dictionary of choice?

            Edited at 2014-02-26 07:11 pm (UTC)

            1. Dictionary-wise, you’re probably right. But if I ever need rescuing at sea, I’d rather rely on an old salt than a lexicographer!
              1. sotira, If you need rescuing at sea, I am sure that you will not be trying to discuss crossword matters but then again . . .

                Edited at 2014-02-26 10:38 pm (UTC)

  14. 13 mins so I must have been on the setter’s wavelength, especially as the last three of those minutes were spent on the MYSTICALLY/FINZI crossers, the latter of which went in with fingers crossed from the wordplay once I had solved the former. 20th century classical composers aren’t that well known to me, unlike 20th century folk singers …………

    I didn’t have a problem with LONGBOAT and I’m of the opinion that it didn’t need a question mark, and I don’t know enough about “rigging” to have had a problem with FORESAIL. Like z8 I was looking to reverse “red” into 6dn before the penny dropped.

  15. Gerald Finzi frequently is to be heard on Classic FM – particularly his Eclogue, so no problem there.
  16. Sorry, but Finzi doesn’t belong in a daily puzzle. It’s ridiculously obscure unless you know it, and thus really just an old-style GK clue.

    Good puzzle though, cruel but fair (except for the obvious).

  17. 10:33 with Finzi the last one in – clear wordplay helped with that one – I think I’ll have to start listening to Vinyl’s ‘blog’ music too.
  18. 22:04 so on the tricky side. I guessed at Finzi on the basis that I know somebody with that name. Despite having the splendid first name Orlando he isn’t in the arts, rather he’s a “Director of Fixed Income Credit Research”.

    COD to trellis for reminding me of Mrs Trellis of North Wales:

    Dear Miss Lawley,
    Here’s a great idea. Why not do a celebrity edition of Desert Island Discs?

    Dear Boris,
    You’ve got my vote for London. In fact, I’d vote you Mayor of any town 380 miles away from here.
    Yours etc., Mrs. Trellis

  19. 47m but needed aids on some obscurities so a DNF but enjoyable struggle too! I also liked 6d but took ages to see obvious ones such as FALLEN. Thanks for the solving tip, Jimbo. I’ll try that when I am next becalmed!
  20. One missing today (Finzi). Did not like Glad but did like Sniveller and the Indian bread. FOI Bra. Countertenor and Mystically from wordplay.
  21. I liked this one a lot- lots of very nice clues. There seems to be more use of the cryptic definition these days, which needs some adapting to, but they are often quite clever and amusing. Shame about finzi- setters should try and give obscure clues a definitive cryptic.
  22. Thanks for parsing Aluminium…should have understood that one.

    Grumpily accepting of “that place” in the Tivoli clue, but don’t like “What turns round” as an anagrind, unless I am missing something.

    1. I think it’s a reversal indicator, rather than an anagrind. It’s I LOV(e) IT reversed.
  23. Around the hour mark, which is good going for me. Again enjoyed the puzzle some excellent word play. I too don’t like CDs too much but I think we are in for a few from now on. Didn’t know Finzi but guessed it, couldn’t work out word play for aluminium so thank you for the blog.

    I always enjoy reading all your contributions here and find this site thoroughly enjoyable, it really makes my day. However Dr. Thud and Blunder makes me laugh out loud uproariously with his updates on the A&E and his gentle digs at us johnny foreigners. No offence taken at all I assure you.

    One of the good doctor’s complaints (no pun intended) is the way we johnies have changed perfectly good Coloniel place names into strange sounding pagan ones thereby spoiling the world’s map. I think he is wrong and hereby submit a list of places with the old Coloniel name given by the British (I think) and the name given by the pagans to show that there has been a distinct improvement.

    Nairobi Wallah

    Elizabethville in DRC is now Lumumbashi
    Bathurst is now Banjul
    Georgetown is now Janjanbureh
    (Both Gambia)
    Emma Haven is now Taluk Bayur (Indonesia)
    Philadelphia in Jordan is now Amman
    Broderick Falls is now Webuye
    Fort Hall is now Muranga
    Thompson’s Falls is now Nyahururu

    (All these are here in Kenya)

    Victoria is now Bander Labuan
    Jamestown is now Bayan Lepes
    (Both Malaysia)

    Amherst in Burma is now Kyaikkami

    Fort Sandeman is now Zhob
    Montgomery is now Sahiwal
    (Both Pakistan)

    Westhill in Singapore is now Chong Pang
    Havelock Mine in Swaziland is now Bulembu
    Fort Victoria in Zimbabwe is now Masvingo

    Does anyone know any others?

    1. Staines in Surrey is now Staines-upon-Thames (or more correctly, Staines-under-Thames). Does that count?

      Edited at 2014-02-26 04:36 pm (UTC)

      1. Bigtone, I think it does but we will let the good doctor rule on that one. I must say I smiled when I saw that one, it almost looks like an attempt to make the place sound more up market. Staines-upon-Thames (to me at least) sounds much more des res than Staines. I wonder if house prices went up when the name changed?!!
          1. I bet that the local Council Tax went up as every bit of paper, heading, invoice, street sign, council vehicle etc would have had to be changed, at a cost.

            Edited at 2014-02-26 05:52 pm (UTC)

          2. Sorry, Nairobi Wallah, but I think you may have proven Thud’s point. Anyone who messes with a name as beautiful as Emma Haven is not fit to hold public office and should be immediately replaced with a Victorian Vice-Consul from Staines.
            1. Sotira, I must admit to a real tinge of sadness when I typed in that particular entry. Emma Haven does sound a lovely place doesn’t it? However, your punishment does sound rather harsh, any place that is landed with a chap from Stains must have our sympathy!

              Nairobi Wallah


    2. A most welcome addition to our happy band, love his A&E anecdotes… just waiting for a hapless East Anglian cruciverbalist to log on and recognise him/herself…
      1. Well, good lord! I am honoured and not a little embarrassed.

        Regarding place names, well, I think I have to put my foot down with a firm hand, especially as regards Emma Haven and Havelock Mine, who both sound like characters out of an Agatha Christie novel.

        However, I am prepared to put up with Zhob, if only because it gives me pleasure to imagine Rowan Atkinson pronouncing it. And when did “Malaysia” grow that extra “si”?

        As for A&E antics, I have long thought that one of the traits that marks we humans out from the lower animals is our ability to laugh at the misfortune of others.

        Turning to today’s puzzle, I was a DNF. Somehow I managed to get “BAG” for 24d (I have no idea how), which made MYSTICAL impossible – I was looking for a MIS-something. I doubt if I’d have got FINZI even with the right checkers.

        Even more inexcusably (given my surroundings), I failed on FALLEN, being unable to think of anything but “bog” for a swamp. I blame all these bloody patients who seem to turn up when they please – it really ruins a man’s concentration. So, all in all, the SE was a bit of a flop.

  24. 51 minutes when I put in the final letter (N rather than Z just because it sounded better and was an unknown). Spent a long time on 12dn as I thought the anagram indicator was perhaps and tried to get ‘O it’s nice bat’ to make something that turns round. Once understood it got my COD.
  25. 17m. I found this a bit of a grind but that’s probably got more to do with the effects of 8 hours of meetings than the puzzle itself.
    I didn’t know FINZI but thought it perfectly fair… but now I see that FINNI is just as feasible an answer so I have changed my mind. Please try not to do this, setters.
    Thankfully I was sufficiently ignorant to have no problem with either LONGBOAT or FORESAIL.
    22ac is downright weird. I thought the change of editor was due next month…
  26. Had to guess at FINZI and resort to aids (my wife, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things musical) to confirm it. It seems a shame to have to resort to such an obscurity when a simple FUNGI would have fitted just as well.
  28. Ah! Gerald Finzi just happens to be my favourite composer – ever. Many’s the time I’ve heard something on the radio and said “I like that” only to find it was by Finzi.
    I would urge everyone to listen to his Eclogue on YouTube – it’s exquisitely beautiful. Or try his clarinet concerto or 5 Bagatelles.
    Oh, and he was an expert apple grower as well.

    Having said that, he was one of my last clues in…

  29. Nice to see Gerald Finzi get a mention. Our local choir often uses “In Terra Pax” as a filler for a Christmas concert. A beautiful 10 minute piece for baritone and chorus with the choir imitating a peal of bells as they sing “Glory to God in the Highest”. Well worth a listen. I found this puzzle a bit of a struggle – partly because of a misdirection at the CROSSROADS. 45 minutes. Ann
  31. A long hour, in two goes, still wasn’t enough for the FINZI MYSTICALLY cross, so a DNF. I thought about the LONGBOAT LONGSHIP and the rigging issues, but decided that ‘crosswords is crosswords’. I grimaced, and not in a particularly pleasant way, at the Russian Dolls, and hoped that that isn’t what crosswords are becoming.

    Had I logged in earlier I would have tried to generate some enthusiasm for discussion of conic sections being plane figures, but conics on their own definitely being three dimensional – c is c or not.

    And I commend New Amsterdam / New York to Dr T&B and Nairobi Wallah.

    Edited at 2014-02-26 10:27 pm (UTC)

  32. Enjoyed the puzzle, and I’m a bit surprised that so many contributors have not heard of Gerald Finzi, his music turns up pretty frequently on Radio 3 as well as Classic FM. Then again, there are loads of famous scientists whose existence has eluded my knowledge.
  33. 8:45 for me – slightly better than yesterday, but still pretty pathetic considering this was all familiar stuff. With the F and N in place for 21dn, I found it hard to get FENBY out of my mind, even though he isn’t all that well known as a composer. On the other hand I’m very fond of FINZI (Gerald, that is), and a bit saddened that so many hadn’t heard of him. (I suggest his lovely Romance in E flat, Op 11 if you want to try him.)

    Nice puzzle.

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