Times 25730 – Carry On, Sister!

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
41 minutes, finishing, unusually, with two multi-word answers, both of which were very good. A very nice offering from Jeff Pearce yesterday for those who may have missed it. Oops, I got one (down) wrong.

Across

1 ENCAMP – the first four letters are reversed (not all, as I thought); thus, A + C + NE (reversed) + MP.
4 PHEASANT – SHAPE* (anagram) + ANT; yes, that sort of game.
10 UNPERFORMED – UNFORMED around REP reversed.
11 OHM – MO reversed around H; the non-specificity of ‘unit’ held me up at first.
12 TROT OUT – TOUT (‘[to] market produce’) around ROT; the literal is ‘show’; my COD.
14 BENNETT – one to keep Keriothe happy: BENT = inclination (rather than gift) around NET (clear) for presumably Arnold Bennett (he of ‘Anna of the Five Towns’) – the subject of a themed Guardian puzzle recently.
15 ON THE OFF CHANCE – ON/OFF around THE + CHANCE.
17 FIELD AMBULANCE – A MEDIC B[attle] U[nit] FALLEN* (anagrind is ‘treated’) for a nice &lit.
21 BEER GUT – B[illions] + EER + TUG reversed.
22 INBREED – I’D + BEEN + R[ight]*; I will resist all jokes about denizens of the island off Australia.
23 AXE – [t]AXE[s].
24 CHARGE NURSE – I think how this works is as follows: CHARGE (order) + NURSE (minister to) with the quirky literal ‘tender for NHS services’. I am, however, open to tenders…
26 EXTOLLED – [v]EXED around TOLL (‘ringing of bell’).
27 SNIPER – it’s a reversal of REPIN[e]S missing its sixth letter.

Down

1 ERUPTION – I invented ‘eruction’ and wondered how cure = antiseptic; it’s PURE (reversed) + ON IT* to give the nasty skin condition.
2 CAP – I had to dig deep through the butter mountain of my mind for the Common Agricultural Policy.
3 MARLOWE – MARE (Latin sea is the lunar plain) around LOW (like my salary).
5 HUMPBACK BRIDGE – HUMPBACK + B[lack] + RIDGE.
6 ADDENDA – hidden.
7 ADOLESCENCE – A + DOLE + C[areer] in SCENE.
8 TOMATO – [a]TOM + ATO[m] for the formal fruit / functional vegetable.
9 PONTEFRACT CAKE – PACKET + OFTEN* around CAR reversed fro the sweets made of liquorice; other Yorkshire towns to look out for in Crossword-land include REDCAR (racecourse), RIPON (cathedral) and LEEDS (dump = only joking! One of my best friends is an oculist in Headingley).
13 OUTSIDE LEFT – OUTSIDE (‘in the open air’) + LEFT (‘flew off’) for the football position that would now be rendered as ‘wide man’ (and some people believe in progress as a natural law!); would you believe it, my last in?! (I was looking for a bird.)
16 HEADGEAR – HEAD (top) + GEAR (property); fortunately, BALMORAL as a hat had come up recently and I remembered it. (The meds must be working.)
18 LOGICAL – GI in LOCAL.
19 LEBANON – B[ritish] in LEAN ON.
20 AB+LAZE
25 [w]RAP

41 comments on “Times 25730 – Carry On, Sister!”

  1. 20:41 .. mostly fairly gentle but the crossing pair of TROT OUT and PONTEFRACT CAKE kept me frowning for 5 minutes at the end.

    I misread your remark, ulaca, and thought that one of your best friends was an occultist in Leeds. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; live and let live, I say. In fact I felt slightly disappointed when I realised the truth.

    I read 12a as TOUT (‘market’) and “produce for show” as the def. Either way, agree it’s the COD

  2. Quite hard in places, I thought, for a Monday but it all came together in about 50 minutes.

    I couldn’t find EXTOL = “magnify” in any of the usual sources but the SOED has “in a bad sense, make too much of, exaggerate” which I suppose makes it okay.

    Off for a kip now after a busy night’s solving and blogging!

    Edited at 2014-03-10 03:48 am (UTC)

    1. I think the setter intends it in the (very positive) sense as used most famously in the Magnificat: ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord…’

      Perhaps a tad too uncommon these days to feature in mainstream dictionaries, ‘magnify’ will be there in most of the thesauruses, I imagine.

      1. Chambers gives ‘to praise highly’ as one of the definitions for both words. Several neat touches IMO in a puzzle that I felt was old fashioned in a good way. Sixteen minutes.

  3. Was determined not to have my usual (of late) WOE-ful experience, so spent the last 5 minutes on TROT OUT, rather than chucking in took out. That took my time to 35 mins or so all told. Read the clue in same way as Sotira.

    Couldn’t parse SNIPER (was looking for a missing VI somewhere…), so thanks for sorting that out.

  4. 15ac well describes my efforts today with quite a few going in on the literals because my parsings were mostly off beam. You get mornings like that. But not usually on a Monday.
  5. A little on the easy side, what used to be standard for a Monday. No real gripes except for two poets in one puzzle, but that fits the old fashioned feel to this offering. 20 minutes to solve and I’m expecting some comment from our own NHS representative with regard to 22A and his “customers”
  6. 22 minutes on this, so presumably set up to demonstrate that the Monday Easy is tougher than the New Baby.
    Similar experience to others reported here: last two were OUTSIDE LEFT (a tribute to the great and recently late Tom Finney?) and TROT OUT. Like ulaca, I was looking for a bird/insect for the former, and toying with anagrams of “open air left” until crossers made it impossible. Alewife porn, anyone?
    Hesitation over HEADWEAR/GEAR compounded by a persistent prompt from the lower depths that a Balmoral was a coat not a hat. Chambers says it’s also a petticoat and a boot.
    Slow on the poet and the writer, too. Had I missed Alan Bennett’s obituary, perhaps, as he was the only writer I could think of of that ilk? Glad to report he’s not eligible, still not on the cart.
    Thought TOMATO was very clever – so clever I needed ulaca’s explanation to understand it fully, for which many thanks.
    1. I just realised I had a different answer from the blogger at 16dn having plumped for HEADWEAR without even considering -GEAR.

      WEAR is defined in SOED as the ability to be worn further or over a (specified) period of time; degree of resistance to the effects of being worn, and this to me is a perfectly valid property to be considered when choosing to buy a garment, carpet or any other applicable item. So I claim a legitimate alternative, assuming that -GEAR is the given answer.

      Edited at 2014-03-10 02:04 pm (UTC)

      1. …is also a very good illustration of definition by example, as in among the properties I would look for in a carpet are ….and wear. Not impossible in crossword land, and definitely one of those where, if you hit it first, you’re unlikely to question it too deeply. My sympathies: in tournament play it would uncountably fall foul of the 20 year rule: the editor has not allowed an appeal in 20 years and isn’t about to start now!
  7. 19 mins so about average for these days for me.

    The previous crossword editor told me he was quite bemused by the belief that Monday’s crossword was easier than usual, since he had never set out to do that.. but he also said he found it very hard to tell which grids solvers would find easy, and which hard.

  8. 18 minutes but then realised I had gone for the close but no cigar option of HEADWEAR, thinking it was some sort of weak cryptic definition. Remember, idiot, if you can’t parse your answer, it’s probably wrong…

    P.S. I should already have realised my brain hadn’t woken up when I spent some time trying to convince myself that the hidden word in 6dn was DENDATA.

    Edited at 2014-03-10 12:24 pm (UTC)

  9. 9 mins so definitely on the setter’s wavelength, although I confess that because of helpful checkers I didn’t bother to parse FIELD AMBULANCE and PONTEFRACT CAKE, and those answers opened up the rest of the puzzle. Count me as another for whom TROT OUT was LOI.
  10. 34 min: held up for several minutes by having TURN OUT at 12 – thinking of turn down for deterioration. After getting rid of that, checkers gave me 13 eventually. so 12 was LOI.
  11. 25m, of which over 10 minutes on 3dn. I had convinced myself that the definition was “moon”, that plain was “mere” and I was looking for a poet with four letters, second letter O, to shorten to three. Fortunately this approach didn’t produce anything other than MERPOPE, which doesn’t look like the name of a moon, so eventually I reconsidered.
    I also managed to type in ADOLESCWNCE, but I’m going to be kind to myself and call that an iPad error.
    I was unsure about HEADGEAR. “Property” for “gear” seems loose to me, but I suppose “property” for “wear” would be even looser.
  12. A good puzzle, with the paired atoms probably my fave construction. 21 minutes.

    Re grids, there seem to be some at The Times which, even when I’m solving well, don’t necessarily offer generous access to other areas, usually corners, of the pattern. This always makes me feel cheated after that elusive thing called ‘a good start’. I’m sure you know the feeling.

  13. A smidge under 22 minutes for me so I definitely found it harder than the “usual” Monday fare. Eruption and trot out were last in. COD to tomato.

    I had a few QMs:
    – at 24 where I wasn’t sure about order and charge being synonymous;
    – at 27 where, like others, I couldn’t “see” the missing six;
    – at 2d as the policy reference passed nme by; and
    – at 5d as I can’t see what “a little effort” is doing in the clue.

    I haven’t been able to try the quick cryptic since I’m in the odd position of having access to the crossword club but not the paper.

    1. ‘The King charged him to attend’ seems okay. I think the little effort refers to the need to slow down (in/on a vehicle) when negotiating a humpback bridge.
      1. If you’re walking down a road and encounter a humpback bridge you need to expend a little effort to climb over it. That’s how I took it anyway!
  14. 35 minutes, held up at the end by the NE corner and trying to think of a word for moon for 3D until I realised I was looking for a poet.

    Thought the clue for TOMATO was top notch and also liked the clueing of BEER GUT as a large corporation.

  15. Sort of topical, as the birth of the Cryptic’s baby sister means almost double the number of the blog posts here, but might bloggers be willing to start making use of LJ’s “Read more ..” facility so that only the intro shows up on the home page of the blog?

    I believe you just highlight the part of the post you want to conceal then click the “Insert Cut” icon to wrap the main body of the post in tags which produce a “Read more …” message after the intro.

    This would allow a lot more posts to fit onto the home page.

    Just a suggestion ….

  16. 18 minutes, also held up by TROT OUT and its crossers, but it’s all there in the end. Glad PONTEFRACT CAKE appeared somewhere else a while ago, it was in the mind when trying to unravel that anagram
  17. 20 minutes, with uncertainty about eruction or eruption… nothing else too tricky today.
  18. On my commute in, finished all bar three in the SE, which then appeared fully formed in my mind as I picked the paper up again at 5.00 pm, so 25 minutes – plus a whole day’s subconscious cogitations. A pleasant Monday solve, nothing too spectacular.

    Nice to see “repine” now and then. I’ve been re-reading P&P recently: “I will not repine” says Jane, “I’m gonna wash that Mr Bingley right out of my hair”. Or something like that.

  19. Well, I certainly didn’t find this easy at all. Took about an hour, ending with SNIPER/HEADGEAR, the former of which I couldn’t parse at all, and the latter from wordplay only, though ‘gear’ for ‘property’ is weird, and the only Balmoral I knew of being the Queen’s Scottish getaway. A lot of this held me up, as I was looking for a moon, and a bird, and PONTEFRACT CAKE hadn’t been in my vocabulary. My mind insisted that the ‘benefit’ was a ‘boon’, not a ‘dole’, leading to all kinds of odd-looking constructions. I fell into every trap, apparently, so no easy Monday for me. Regards.
    1. The Balmoral takes its name from the area of Balmoral to which you refer. It was famously the headgear of the highland soldier for hundreds of years with individual clan markings to distinguish one troop from another. In modern times it has been replaced by the Glengarry – not to universal approval!
  20. I suppose this was a good time to mistype a crossing letter (HUMPGACK/GENNETT), since I’d accidentally spotted ENCAMP on this blog before scrolling down; and I had had not a clue as to how to solve 1ac at the time, with only E and M. Never heard of the bridge or the cake; and it was Shakespeare who led me to see PONTEFRACT from the checkers. I was also helped by ‘Balmoral’ and OUTSIDE LEFT having appeared recently. COD to TROT OUT, yes, but I also liked (was misled by) PHEASANT.
  21. The Sunday (prize) puzzle is still live and there may well be people who haven’t yet done it so it may spoil it for them to find answers in a blog that’s unrelated to that puzzle – that’s why prize puzzles aren’t blogged here until their submission date has passed.
    1. Ooops! Should have thought of that, and clearly didn’t. I just deleted my comment, and perhaps Nairobi Wallah (or Ulaca?) could delete his? My sincere apologies.
      1. Done. NW got his answer and the rationale for zapping, so all well and good, I hope.
  22. Something of a slog for me today but happy to have eventually finished in over an hour. I got some answers but then spent a lot of time working the parsings – tomato came quickly but I took ages over field ambulance and then kicked myself when I saw the anagram. COD 20dn for its nautical reference and, as it happens, the potential reasons for my toil today – yesterday included a fantastic nautically themed party on the River Thames in the sunshine and I probably need a 24ac to help me recuperate.
  23. 15:09 for me, completely failing to find the setter’s wavelength.

    With 10ac (UNPERFORMED) and 1dn (ERUPTION), I was expecting key words in the wordplay (“theatre” and “rash”) to have no connection with the definitions (“as a fresh play” and “antiseptic”), and was surprised to find this wasn’t so.

    Edited at 2014-03-10 11:06 pm (UTC)

  24. // I’m expecting some comment from our own NHS representative with regard to 22A and his “customers”// I wouldn’t dream of commenting, nor of suggesting that, in Norfolk, the term “having sexual relations” is widely misconstrued. I did, however, enjoy the medical flavour to today’s offering.

    I liked today’s puzzle – slightly chewy, but not too much so; took me about 40min. Did this one on paper for a change, which reminded me to make an optician’s appointment.

    My COD was 8d (TOMATO), which I thought was neatly done. I’m not really a fan of the long anagrams (such as 9d or 17ac) – there’s very little crypticity to them, and I much prefer shorter anagrams that are craftily hidden.

    Quite a lively day here, for a Monday. Accident Of The Day almost went to a motorist injured by a cyclist, which made a pleasant change. However, he was pipped at the proverbial by a gentleman with a broken finger. It’s not that the broken finger was particularly exciting but, after waiting for about 20min, the owner of the finger came to the desk and said “excuse me, but I think I’m having a heart attack”, and then proceeded to do so. Now, that’s what I call panache. Frankly, we could do with more of that class of customer.

  25. I had almost the same vocabulary and misdirection problems that Kevin from NY had – the difference being that he finished, and after an hour and a half of struggle I had to throw the towel in. I, too, liked TOMATO
  26. Late solving, so pretty tired. Not a great time, and I found that I couldn’t be bothered to try parsing a number of the answers. I think I would have been up half the night trying to sort out ‘tomato’ and ‘field ambulance’. So, I was grateful to checking letters to enable me to complete correctly.
    Good night, and best wishes to all.

Comments are closed.