Times 25742 – Doggy Special

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Just snuck under the half hour mark on this pleasant Monday offering. I am still suffering from a lurgy, so this one is done from home on the iPad without my “template”. I hope it turns out legible, even if it looks a bit different from my normal efforts.

Across

1 Declaimer – deer around claim (we had this for mining area not long ago)
6 Chaos – cha + OS (ordinary seaman)
9 Gauze – gaze around U (ludicrous Mitfordese for the “right” people and way of doing things)
10 Jet-setter – I was fixated on red setter, even though that is not “dashed”:)
11 Spiral staircase – I think the point here is that the means of getting from the ground floor to the first floor is not so much what is written in the clue as its “opposite”, the “shape of a flight produced in a corkscrew design”
13 Balletic – anagram of L (MahLer’s 4th) + citable*
14 Touché – rather liked this: sounds like too + our favourite revolutionary, Che the Argentine doctor
16 Sawyer – rather liked this too (must be the effect of the antibiotics): another homophone clue – there are a few – “I saw you!” As McT points out, there’s no “homogrind” – it’s just a rendering of wot a tot might cry
18 Nineties – the literal is “earlier in decade” (ie earlier in respect of the decade system) and the wordplay ties (formal wear) after in (popular) in NE (Tyneside) Jack has a rather more prosaic, if plausible, explanation for this 🙂 where “earlier” indicates that the neckwear goes after the Geordie stuff
21 Our Mutual Friend – mutual in for ruined* for Dickens’ overblown late novel
23 Resonance – E + son in France without its F
25 Drama – a MA Rd all reversed
26 Codex – code + x for the “ancient manuscript text in book form”(ODO)
27 Totem pole – tote (how setters always carry things) + M + Pole

Down

1 Degas – eg + as following D(uke)
2 Cauliflower – Bigtone’s mutt (“collie”) + flower (rose, perhaps)
3 Acetate – I best leave this to my Monday colleague, Vinyl; I believe records used either to be made of or covered with an acetate (an ester of acetic acid, apparently); thank goodness the wordplay is easier than the science: a + CE + Tate
4 Majestic – Mic(rophone) around a jest for adjectival august with the stress on the second syllable
5 Rattan – first letters of Rozzers Always Took + tan (how setters always whack people); if you see a word like rozzers in the muddle of a clue, pound to a penny it’s just there for the wordplay and the meaning is absolutely immaterial
6 Cheerio – he + ire reversed in Co
7 Ant – a + NT
8 Sorceress – and so we move onto the homophone that will have those that pronounce their r’s up in arms; sorcer (sounds like saucer – “cupbearer” in tune with the Classical theme, very nice) + E + SS
12 Archipelago – mmm, we have one of our undefined male Christian names (at least it’s a rather dapper one, “Archie”) around p for power followed by lag (convict) and O (over in cricket)
13 Bishopric – definition is the episcopal see, wordplay is bishop (man on board) + last letter of officeR + IC
15 Silliest – the C has to leave the Isles of Scilly (AKA Scillies) + T(ime)
17 Equinox – we just had one; equine without its last letter + ox
19 Earldom – rising artist almost has to be RA reversed and that slots into model*
20 Burnet – bury without its last letter + net for the lepidopterist’s delight; I came perilously close to satisfying myself that tupnit was a word
22 Drake – d + rake
24 Sad – alternate letters of StAnD

55 comments on “Times 25742 – Doggy Special”

  2. Didn’t have my timer with me, away from home. But then another 5m to boot a MacBook and check the dictionary app (Oxford) for BURNET and to be sure there wasn’t an obscure meaning of DUN{k} meaning “put in ground” — though the latter had “anagram” written all over it with •U•N•T as the crossers. (Nice misdirection for those, like me, looking for something subtle that wasn’t there.) Today’s only bit of non-standard GK.

    Too many bad puns today. But I don’t think 16ac is standard homophonic fare as one might actually say “saw yer”, if only in The Beano. Plus: there’s no indicator I can find.

    And … a speedy recovery to our esteemed blogger.

    Edited at 2014-03-24 04:36 am (UTC)

  3. I read 18ac as TIES (formal wear) with IN (popular) inside NE (Tyneside) in front of it (i.e. earlier) and the literal simply as ‘decade’.

    I solved this immediately after finishing the Quickie blog and wondered if that might have a detrimental effect, but if anything it sharpened the old grey matter and I raced through this in 23 minutes boosted by a thought that had already been planted in my mind. My only unknown was BURNET but that was easily gettable from wordplay.

    CHAVS at 6ac would have given us a pangram.

    Edited at 2014-03-24 05:28 am (UTC)

  4. All bar two done in about 30mins, then another 10mins or so for SAWYER followed by BISHOPRIC.

    BURNET was unknown, a couple of others unparsed, but obvious from partial parsing and / or checkers (NINETIES, ARCHIPELAGO, SPIRAL STAIRCASE).

  5. 12m. Didn’t know BURNET. Not a lot to say otherwise. I was discussing equinoxes and solstices with my kids yesterday so that one went straight in.
  6. 9 minutes, of which 2 spent checking that my LOI BURNET was a moth, was tempted by BUGNET (“thing for catching moths”!) but it didn’t parse. The rest just flowed non stop. Maybe they’re not easier on Mondays but I’m less dim?
    I agree, ulaca, OMF is Dickens’s worst book IMO.
  7. 16.10. Pity about the pangram. Didn’t know burnet. Unchallenging – I wondered at one point if I was doing the junior cryptic by mistake.
  8. I’ve been having trouble accessing the quick cryptic in the Times On Line. When I try to open it I just get a message; “File Not Found”.

    Is anyone else having this problem and is there another way to access this crossword?

    Thanks
    Cozzielex

    1. Jackkt introduced me to the facsimile edition of the times on line, which can be found
      here. It appears early morning as the hard copies are being distributed.
      1. I think there’s restricted access to the facsimile and it’s not included in the cheapest subscription.
    2. The “File not found” URL is consistent with the numbering from the first two weeks, but today’s puzzle is accessible using 111 as the last 3 digits of the URL versus the 112 that the webpage was expecting. It’s worth messing around with the URL if this problem arises again in the future.
  9. 12 minutes, with DEGAS an absolute gimme after turning up in today’s quickie, albeit as wordplay rather than answer. JET SETTER/ING from 12 days ago.
    Briefly held up by a typesetting error in the hard copy, where 27ac appeared as “Male European taken on to carry”; it was completed by (presumably) 0dn.
    BURNET/BUGNET ditto and ditto.
    ARCHIPELAGO had a fine cryptic construction, possibly missed by anyone who spotted the words “group of islands”, which must be everyone.
    I liked both SAWYER and SORCERESS, which raised the smile of the day. Would “Female cupbearer” have been a step too far?
  10. Off topic, but a mention in dispatches for our tyro editor who has acknowledged the dodgy homophone clue in this week’s Jumbo and promised speedy correction of the leaderboard. I await with interest to see whether current “nul points” (who presumably read the comments before submitting) will be relegated as the 1 point-ers are promoted.
    1. Great, I look forward to being promoted to the one error brigade!

      Edited at 2014-03-24 09:38 am (UTC)

  12. Not a lot one can say about this – very easy. I suspect “needing” in 2D is padding. Had forgotten BURNET – must have seen it before – but a nice piece of wordplay made it straightforward.
  13. 12 mins and it has all pretty much been said. BURNET was my LOI from the wordplay. I agree that OMF certainly isn’t one of Dickens’ better works.
  14. 25 minutes, held up at the end by BURNET. I was pleased to resist my usual lazy inclinations which would have had me throw in BUGNET without understanding why.
  15. Straightforward one, with LOI BURNET, which I didn’t know. COD to CHAOS, for giving the AB a rest.
  16. Twenty-nine went in almost as write-ins in under 20 minutes, leaving me with a traipse through the alphabet for BURNET, which I didn’t know, didn’t like, and didn’t put in, so a DNF – for a Monday morning crossword. Oh the ignominy!

    Didn’t particularly like the clueing of the staircase – it was both obvious and “wotthehell, Archie, wotthehell” at the same time.

    My COD to ARCHIPELAGO for memories of Archie and Mehitabel, quoted above.

    Edited at 2014-03-24 12:07 pm (UTC)

    1. One of my all-time favourite books of poetry. (And what a blinding name for a cat.)
  17. 19:24 .. just enough thought required for a Monday, I would say.

    I spent nearly 7 minutes at the end staring at C_A_S. In my mental thesaurus, chaos must be some distance from mess. But then my mental thesaurus is itself closer to chaos than mess, my memory palace being a Grand Design somewhere around the first advertising break — parts of it are still at the suppliers and you can bet the windows won’t fit.

    By the way, I’m moving back to England on Wednesday/Thursday, my partner and several other Canadians (smaller, fond of catching mice) to follow a few weeks later. Our lives right now? Chaos.

    1. Safe journey Sotira and welcome home. Hopefully only the mice catchers will go into quarantine!
      1. Thanks, jimbo. All being well we will be living just a couple of counties west of you in Cornwall.
  18. 8 minutes, with the last in BURNET from wordplay – nice gentle start to the week, and congrats to ulaca for joining in what is apparently the greatest offence in crosswordland – declaiming Dickens.
    1. Decrying, perhaps? (Pesky spellcheckers, What can you do? :{)>

      Edited at 2014-03-24 01:58 pm (UTC)

  19. Pleased to have got this one out today (although with one wrong – could not get BURNET and stuck in Punnet without – obviously – being able to parse).

    I’m currently in that twilight zone kind of space between the main cryptic and the Quickie: struggle with the former (except when it is a relatively easy offering like today) but generally knocking over the latter quite easily.

    Feel a bit like one of those “yo yo” teams that always seems to be going up and down between the Premier League and the Championship.

    I guess from here on it’s a matter of practice and analysing the explanations each day…

    COD SAWYER for me – had a good chuckle.

  21. Half an hour of fun to start the week and put a spring in my step: the puzzle has been taking me so long recently that I seriously thought senile decay had got the better of me.

    I wholeheartedly agree with ulaca about the ludicrous U and Non-U business that made aspiring Englishmen timid to the point of paralysis about owning serviettes and fish knives, or going to the toilet. Best completely forgotten, as is that idol of student revolutionaries, CHE Guano.

    I often wonder if Nancy Mitford’s essay was a prank designed to cause anxiety among those who wished to ape the manners of the English aristocracy: she had always been a notorious practical joker.

  22. 12:37 with little to add.

    Ulaca (sorry to hear you’re at death’s door by the way) I constructed the “opposite” in 11 slightly differently from you, seeing it as “flight produced in shape of corkscrew” which sounds more natural. Speaking of spiral staircases, thanks to Sotira for making me laugh with the Grand Designs analogy.

    Burnet unknown but it seemed plausible enough to trust that particular interpretation of the wordplay.

  23. Found most of this (BURNET, now memorised, excepted) easy – perhaps a slight over-definition in a number of clues. A bit over 45 min, ignoring the unfinished moth. Somewhat disappointed, I must say, checking in at noontime and with several homophones, not to have found the usual dust-up.

    Welcome back Sotira. Thx ulaca, nice blog even wo the template.

    Edited at 2014-03-24 01:03 pm (UTC)

    1. Thanks, Paul, but please save the ‘welcome back’ until I’m there. We have a late winter storm heading in for the day I’m supposed to be flying. I may spend the next month living in Halifax International Airport trying to get a seat on a flight out.
    2. That’s because we’re all exhausted from Saturdays’s in the Jumbo, Where the “it sounds like this” word was substituted for the answer it was supposed to sound like, leaving the world’s finest solvers fretting about their otherwise unblemished records. It’s being fixed…
      1. I think I’m glad my brother and sister-in-law are visiting, keeping me away from The Jumble this time. Guess I’d better check the forum for my fix.
  24. Just under half an hour, which must be something of a record for me. A pleasant enough puzzle, just the right level for me and enjoyable set of clues.

    I too had punnet for ages and persuaded myself that “Put in ground short” was pun(t) and that somehow it was an &lit. You know how you can persuade yourself to believe anything if you put your mind to it.

    Equine reminded me that one time I had a list of all these animal-related words: porcine, bovine, feline, etc. Some of them are well known and some sound so odd. Wish I could find that list…

    Nairobi Wallah

  25. 38m today but all correct so a good if slow start to the week. Cocked a suspicious eyebrow at claim and mining area in 1a and held up for too long by the veg and Tom at the end, my LOI. Can’t agree with previous negative comments about OMF – one of my favourites. Did smile at the SORCERESS and had to check CODEX and BURNET but must have been good clues as my guesses were ok.
  26. nice puzzle and blog, was stumped by the clever sawyer and cauliflower (thought something to eat was a rather broad definition). I thought OMF and sorceress were also very good.
  27. About 25 minutes, ending with BURNET from the wordplay. Lots of homophones today, but nothing that made me laugh. SAWYER almost made me cry. Not much else to say, though I think I hear Canada dropping its flags to half staff over Sotira’s departure. Safe trip. Regards.
    1. Probably more a case of getting out before they threw me out, but thank you, Kevin.
  28. I could have done with fewer (putative) homophones (SHAY Guevara? TouCHAY?). And I got 11ac simply from ‘corkscrew’ plus ‘flight’; maybe it’s time to retire ‘flight’=stairs. Bon voyage, Sotira, and as we say here, o-kaerinasai.

    Edited at 2014-03-24 03:44 pm (UTC)

    1. Only the TOU bit is a homophone. Che is just CHE.

      Edited at 2014-03-24 04:34 pm (UTC)

  29. Doggy special, yay!

    Seemed to me to be a routine Monday puzzle and none the worse for that. I liked 14ac.

    Welcome back to the UK sotira, although I am not sure that Cornwall counts.

  30. 7:05 for me, held up by a ridiculously slow start and by desperately trying to fit BURIED (and then, clearly in desperation, BURIAL) into 20dn on the assumption that “short thing for catching” was BUR(r). All the more galling as I knew BURNET. Still, a nice easy start to the week.
    1. //7:05 for me, held up by a ridiculously slow start// It’s phrases like that that make me want to give up.

      About half an hour for me, held up inordinately by my inability to do it any faster.

      All fairly OK, though, and I happen to know my moths so didn’t get held up on BURNET, though I only parsed it retrospectively. Glad to get BISHOPRIC, having remembered it from an earlier puzzle; however, I’m now wondering which vital medical fact has dropped out of my memory to accommodate it.

      Re. ACETATE, I believe “acetates” were records cut directly (rather than being stamped from a metal master) onto a lacquer-coated metal disc, used as demos before pressing large numbers of vinyl copies.

      1. Don’t lose heart, Dr Thud. Working on the assumption that skill at crosswords is comparable to skill at billiards, the fact that I can solve faster than you (most of the time) is (almost certainly) simply down to my youth being significantly more misspent than yours.
        1. Thanks, Tony. Depending on how I extrapolate from my past performance, I’m either asymptoting towards 15min, or moving linearly towards zero time by the year 2030.
  31. May I join the gang welcoming the return of Sotira. Have a safe and pleasant journey.
    Nothing to add about the crossword itself, but I’m in the defend Our Mutual Friend brigade. For some readers, everything Dickens wrote was overblown, but I have come to appreciate his works more and more as I have become wrinklier, and Our Mutual Friend has many subtle depths. The most recent BBC serialisation with Keeley Hawes and Paul McGann was also very watchable.
    1. Why, thank you, geoC. After 12 years in Canada (and a decade of serious globetrotting before that) I may feel like a stranger in my own land, but at least this site and its denizens will be an ever reassuring constant.
    2. have you read Chesterton’s ‘Charles Dickens’? Sounds as if you’d enjoy it.
      1. Many thanks for the recommendation, I’ll add it to the lost to read when I have finished Michael Slater’s magisterial biography and Claire Tomalin’s fairly recent one.
        Regards,
        George

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