Times 25,725 – Chewy Toffee Flavour

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
20 minutes and not a lot to say really. The bird may be unknown to some but I expect some fast times today.

On edit: clearly I got that wrong. Luckily I was in tune with the setter because most others have found this quite hard so I’ve changed the heading from “Vanilla Flavour”

Across
1 EMPHATIC – CITE reversed (from East) surrounds MP-HA(s);
9 LIES,DOWN – the suggestion is that if lies are down truth is up – as it’s not a zero sum game it’s not strictly correct;
10 INTRIGUE – IE=that is surrounds (turning – n)*; n=indefinite number (algebra);
11 APOPLEXY – A-PO(peo-PLE)XY;
12 HOUSE,BOUND – H-OUSE(l)-BOUND; is this the bird that flies in ever decreasing circles?;
14 WIKI – WI-K-I; WI=Women’s Institute; on-line encyclopedia;
15 MELDING – M-(g)ELDING;
17 KINSMAN – KIN(g)S-MAN; grand=1,000=g;
21 NICK – two meanings, the second refering to the police force as NICK is slang for arrest. On edit – and for the police station;
22 DEHYDRATED – DE(H-TARDY reversed)ED;
23 STOCK,CAR – (cost)*-RACK reversed;
25 TAX,HAVEN – TAX-HAVE-(o)N; Man is not strictly short for Isle of Man, the correct abbreviation being IOM;
26 INSECURE – picnic=easy job=sinecure then move the s=son;
27 NONSENSE – NO-NS-(seen)*; (Japanese) drama=NO; (bridge) partners=NS;
 
Down
2 MONGOOSE – MOOSE surrounds (gon)*;
3 HARASSED – HAR(ASS)ED;
4 TOGA – TO(n)GA; I had a Latin mater who used to turn up wearing a TOGA – completley mad;
5 CLEAR,UP – C(LEAR)UP;
6 SECOND.WIND – back=SECOND; turn=WIND;
7 SOLECISM – SOLE-(M-SIC reversed);
8 ENDYMION – (nnoyed + im)*; today’s Greek mythology and Keat’s poetry;
13 BENEDICTUS – BENEDICT(in-e)+US; a canticle;
15 MONASTIC – M-ON-ASTI-C; brother=monk;
16 LACROSSE – L(ACROSS)E;
18 STAGNATE – ST-AG(N)ATE; N=newton=unit of force;
19 ATELIERS – landlords=hoteliers then change ho=house to A(rtists);
20 SHORTEN – (southern – u)*;
24 OXEN – O(X-E)N; running=ON; by=multiplied by=X; E from (statu)E;

55 comments on “Times 25,725 – Chewy Toffee Flavour”

  1. 88 minutes, with a fail on my last one in (‘abetters’ – because it fitted – for ateliers). I’m not quite sure how a puzzle with vocabulary including Endymion, ateliers, wiki and Benedictus, and a variety of wordplay constructions, can be described as vanilla. I am interested to hear what others think – not to mention, read the times posted.

    I thought OXEN was a cracking entry.

  2. I’ve been a follower of this site for years. Probably finish close to 99% of this crossword – albeit at times with use of aids. Today’s rates as pretty much the most challenging I’ve seen. I didn’t finish – getting stuck in the SE corner.
    I think I have the same professional background as Dorsetjimbo – he was probably much better at that too!
    1. Good to hear from you – but come out of anonymity and join in the fun

      I trained as an actuary but never practiced. I was sucked into computer programming circa 1962 – wrote an actuarial valuation in ICL 1301 code – and ended up as part of a consultancy dealing with IT manufacturers and financial services companies.

  3. I’m with Ulaca – really struggled today and in the end shamefully had to resort to aids to give me a boost otherwise I’d have been really stuck.
    At least 90 minutes with SE corner giving me a lot of problems.
    Not my sort of puzzle I guess.
  4. More enjoyable than yesterday.

    Jim, I think that the bird you are looking for is the Oozlum bird. It appears amongst other places in the old Rugby Song “We’re off to see the Wild West Show” along with other notables including the vertically-challenged Fukawi tribe (don’t ask).

    You are correct about Man v IOM but in crosswordland I always consider the island when I see Man.

  5. Yes, add me to the list of those who found this heavy-going.

    The leader board had nothing under 25 minutes with several around 40 minutes on the front page when I looked early this morning and all the comments at that stage remarked on the toughness of the puzzle, so it seems our esteemed blogger is out of step on this one, and good for him!

    I required the best part of 2 hours with considerable resort to aids once the first hour was past. It took me 14 minutes to find my first answer.

    Leaving aside the weekend puzzles (both on the easy side for once) I’ve averaged about 90 minutes over my last three weekday solves, which considering yesterday’s doddle is pretty disastrous.

    Edited at 2014-03-04 09:24 am (UTC)

  6. Whatever you’re having for breakfast, Jim, I’ll have some of that! I thought I was doing well on this one to get in under 30 minutes (76″ under, to be precise) and the other online timings suggest the majority are struggling.
    I thought there were many rattling good clues, too: so good that I thought in relief that ATELIERS, my last in, had to be a cryptic definition. Your revelation of the wordplay puts it up several notches in my book.
    NICK for me was not the arrest but the police station, making more sense of the clue.
    And just a thought. Don’t you think IOM (or even Isle of Man)at the beginning of the clue for 25ac would have been a bit of a giveaway? “Man” gave the clue a (sort of) superficial fluidity and is, at least among the solving community, a familiar enough convention.
    I enjoyed this one – chewy (for me) but gettable, well disguised definitions and wordplay. Plenty to trap the “spot the definition, dam’ the wordplay” experts – ?MELANGE, at 15ac ?CHEER UP at 5 for two.
    CoDs from among APOPLEXY (POXY for substandard absolutely fair but not an immediate association) INSECURE (picnic, indeed!) and INTRIGUE for using an anagrind (turning) as the anagrist.
    1. Like you I read “Man’s one” and immediately thought of the island. The clue doesn’t bother me but it just struck me as a bit clunky in what were I agree a reasonable set of clues.

      Don’t understand why I’m quicker than most – must just have been a good day

  7. Good time Jim given Jason’s 18 mins on the club timer, and a great typo at 4ac.
  8. 35m. Like – almost! – everyone else I found this very tough, but also very good indeed. There were three or four clues where I was convinced that the answer was going to be something dreadfully obscure but it turned out just to be a devilishly cunning clue. Most of all my last one in, ATELIERS, which took about ten minutes on its own. Bravo setter.
    I don’t think a WIKI is just an online encyclopedia, Jim. I’m no expert in these matters but I believe WIKI refers to the software…er, system… er, stuff that allows users to edit the… er, thing rather than just a… um, webmaster or something. Hence “result of online cooperation”. Wikipedia is just one example.
      1. Fair point, particularly if you lack my easy mastery of the technical terminology.

        Edited at 2014-03-04 10:33 am (UTC)


  9. … and that error was ATELIERS (where I had abetters for the same reason that ulaca had it!)

    Found it very tough going, but persevered by coming back to it once or twice with a fresh eye. Lots of unknown vocab today: ENDYMION, SINECURE, OUSEL.

    COD to APOPLEXY

    Agree with z8 that NICK refers to the police station

  10. It may be because I started this after a long day’s work, but I never got to grips with this and gave up with about a third done. Sunday’s Mephisto was much easier.
  11. Didn’t find this at all easy; in fact I only just made it to the 9am News — that’s about an hour. Don’t have the puzzle with me right now — making a rare Tuesday trip to see Mrs McT in Fremantle and using her damnable Windoze machine — but I remember thinking I got double the value here. Once to fill the grid from possible defs and crossers. Another to sit back with a coffee and do the parsings.

    Didn’t see anything at first until CLEAR UP made some sense. LEAR will one day appear as a fine painter of birds. (I have an original print.) And then we shall hear of his encounter with Queen Victoria as her art teacher. An amazing chap.

    NICK is the cop shop. And WIKIs are collaborative web compendia of all sorts.

    1. You’re right about Lear. And he was a superb landscape artist. You’re also right about WIKI, as in wikileaks and that Assange bloke. I’m another one that found this a struggle. 26.43.
  12. I’m glad you all seem to regard this as difficult since I managed to solve only six clues unaided :-/ I thought I would mention that to make you feel better 😉

    I ask this to help me learn and most certainly not to be a smart arse, but isn’t police station the second meaning of NICK (21) as in the (police) force work there?

    1. Yes, but you should read the previous entries before making comment as others have already made this point
      1. Sorry about that. I had the reply typed in earlier and got distracted. I’ll make sure to read the thread again before posting in future.
  13. 80 min: a real beast, probably the longest it’s ever taken me to complete correctly. Even so, couldn’t see how to parse, so several went in only after deciding which part of clue was definition. Right half gave most difficulty, with ATELIERS LOI after taking several minutes to conclude ABETTERS wasn’t possible.
  14. Well here’s a perfect example of that hard-to-define thing called “wavelength”! If this had been a Tuesday when I was blogging, you’d have got a very different view of this – 36 minutes of hard slog, and I’m afraid I found it rather an unrewarding experience. Nothing technically wrong with it, of course, and nothing I can put my finger on, it simply didn’t appeal to me. Still, as Inspector Clouseau was wont to say after yet another setback, it’s all part of life’s rich pageant, you kneuw?
    1. I remember suggesting some years back that seeing Pete B mess up was like watching Tiger Woods put one in the drink at Amen Corner. These days Magoo may be the tallest poppy but the pleasure is undiminished (sorry, Magoo!).
  15. 21 minutes and found this tricky going to – biggest holdups being BENEDICTUS and putting SACK in initially at 21. Some very nice clues here – DEHYDRATED and STOCK CAR being standouts
  16. A bit of a change from yesterday’s unchallenging puzzle. This took me 65 minutes, with the NE being slow to yield. I thought the clues were excellent – lots of well-disguised anagram fodder, so when I eventually solved some of them I thought, “Why didn’t I get that sooner?”
    Thanks, setter, for an enjoyable hour.
  17. I managed to make a right Horlicks of timing this but it must have been 30 minutes +/-5 so hats off to Jimbo from me too.

    I needed a lucky guess at 8 as the only handsome youths I know of are Adonis, me and the One Direction boys.

    COD to oxen but with an appreciative nod, as Z8 mentioned, towards having turning as the fodder in 10. Nasty indeed.

  18. Thanks, Jim. DNF (after a very long time), but a good learning experience. This is a good example of what I find difficult (and part of why I enjoy time spent on the grid): not having words such as poxy, picnic=easy job, or have on, (all of which I know, and might even use) pop quickly to mind.
    Can someone help me with the ‘on’ in monastic – the m Asti c makes sense.

    1. I think it’s if you’re ‘taking’ drugs, you can be said to be ‘on’ drugs.
  19. Can’t agree with the blogger that there isn’t much to say about this! After yesterday’s 8 min breeze I found this exceptionally challenging and gave up on timing after a while as it was clear we were going to talking hours rather than mins. About 90 mins overall though but everything was fair so no complaints. For me, one of the hardest I have seen in a few tears. Sorry, years. But the former is equally appropriate.
  20. I don’t think I’ve ever needed the blog as much as that- at least 6 clues unparsed- thanks Jim. I hated this crossword while doing it, but having been enlightened by the blog, have to say it’s all very fair and excellently clued. Benedictus was obscure to me, but the setter clued it very well.
  21. 33 mins. I did this after lunch which is never my optimum solving time, and I was definitely feeling drowsy for a few minutes. However, after reading all your comments I am more than happy with my time under the circumstances. A very good mental workout.

    There was some very chewy cluing indeed, but the grid didn’t help with eight answers having double unchecked letters in them. Having said that, it took me way too long to see some answers, such as CLEAR UP and MELDING. I finished in the NE with ENDYMION after APOPLEXY.

  22. 26:41 .. really, really good Times crossword, IMUH.

    Biggest problems were in the SW where TAX HAVEN, SHORTEN, OXEN and NONSENSE all had me flummoxed for a good while, especially as I felt sure that 20d was CHARTER.

    Many top notch clues, but MONASTIC made me smile with the image and the penny-drop moment. Thank you, setter, and well done, jimbo.

  23. One of my favorite bits of Lear trivia – Charles Darwin used some of Lear’s paintings of birds in his research for “On The Origin of the Species”
  24. Top class crossword, one of the best for quite a while. Nice tight clues, and nothing unfair. You need to get out more, Jim!
    Collins has “Man” as an abbreviation for the Isle of Man.
  25. Very pleased to finish in about an hour, particularly having read the comments on here. Several times I came to a halt only for something to fall into place after a few minutes.

    I listened to some Finzi this morning. Not being a classical music aficionado I can’t judge its relative merit, but suffice to say I enjoyed it and will listen again.

  26. Could you please tell me what indicates job in this clue? I get picnic= easy but does the phrase ‘it’s a picnic’ only refer to a job?
    1. “Sinecure” = a position or office requiring little or no work,in other words “easy job” or “picnic”, then move the S (son) from the front to make INSECURE
  27. Actually, I was in the Jimbo camp today. I solved it in around 16 mins with everything parsed as I went. A couple went in on the definition, but I got all the wordplay sorted in my head while reading the next clue.
    1. Sorry if I’m a bit dim but I see the word “parsed” used here often. Do you mean that you work out precisely how the wordplay part of the clue applies to the definition part?
      1. Happy to be corrected by the big guns but to me, ‘parsing’ is the complete process of understanding all aspects of how the clue leads to the answer.
  28. Dr. Thud said yesterday in a really wonderful story that a whack on the head heightens one’s sense of smell. Has someone worked out if a whack on the head, i.e. precise spot on the nut, instrument to be used, amount of force, etc, can help solve this sort of crossword in less than two hours please? If so, answers on a postcard to my wife at…..She is standing by ready with a rolling pin.

    Well, I managed to finish it after I don’t know how many light years; it wasn’t too bad in the end but didn’t parse things like Endymion and oxen. In fact didn’t really parse many until after they had gone in on a wing and a prayer. Liked the clue for apoplexy the best.

    Nairobi Wallah

    1. Nairobi Wallah,

      Would you mind getting involved in a discussion on an earlier crossword? The issue is homophones and how using it in clues does not work with various local accents. Can you describe how you would pronounce ‘raita’ , the yogourty accompanyment to certain dishes?

  29. Well, yesterday was an anomaly. This took about an hour, and I was happy to finish with NICK. I liked APOPLEXY too, very nice. In fact, the whole thing was very nice, if tough, so thanks to the setter, and kudos to Jimbo for strolling through this like a walk in the park. Not so here, at all. Regards.
  30. Well, it beat me. I wasn’t just DNF, more DNRGHW.

    For some of the clues, I was just on the wrong wavelength and should have got them. BENEDICTUS, ATELIER and ENDYMION were just on the fuzzy borders of my consciousness (got ENDYMION, failed on the other two).

    Also not helped by having ACCURSED for 3d (which parses fine if you equate ACED with “sped”, which perhaps you don’t).

    All in all, I was left feeling a little NFN and glad to see that others found this one tricky.

  31. If not for a late spurt to fill in NW and SE a few minutes ago, this would have been a DNF today, as I had laid it aside this morning after an hour on and off. I found this exceptionally hard going today – for no good reason once I’d filled it in. Bravo blogger for finding it a doddle! And bravo setter – a beast, but a just beast.

  32. 23:28 for me. This was one of those annoying puzzles where I had all but one clue (21ac) solved in around 17-18 minutes (not a complete disgrace for this particular crossword, it would seem), thought of NICK immediately, and then spent simply ages trying to justify it. My instinctive thought, as a northerner, was that the “force” referred to could be a/the waterfall at High Cup Nick in the Pennines, but that seemed a bit too far off the beaten track for a Times puzzle. If NICK had been the only “cut”, I’d probably have gone for it, but there was also NOCK, the cut at the base of an arrow. Eventually I twigged the “force” referred to, but I’d lost at least five minutes by that time. (Sigh!)

    A first-rate crossword, though. My compliments to the setter.

    1. I’ve always known of High Force but hadn’t really processed this as a generic term for waterfall- there are others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Force
      In any case I stupidly put in Dock which held uo monastic for ages and then still had to struggle with the SE. Trying now to keep in mind that Man = Island, NS are bridge partners, by = X and landlords are hoteliers. Without these to mind this puzzle took yesterday breakfast, a drive to London and this morning to finish. Phew!
    2. Just sent a message and didn’t realise I wasn’t logged in. As it hasn’t come up on the site I’ll try to recreate:
      I’ve always known of High Force but hadn’t considered this to be a generic term for waterfall – there are others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Force
      In any case I stupidly put in Dock for cut which held up monastic for ages, then I had to deal with then SE. I must remember Man = Island, NS are bridge partners, x=by, and landlords can be hoteliers. Without these to mind this took all of yesterday and this morning separate by a drive to London.
      1. Just unspammed you – comments with links get quarantined as “suspicious”, as most turn out to be adverts for knocked-off Ugg Boots or Louis Vuitton handbags.

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