Times 25746

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 29:39 but with one letter accidentally missed out.

I found this quite straightforward. A sub-30 minute solve on a blogging day is pretty good going for me. That said, I was too quick to hit Submit with the half hour seconds away, and I completely failed to notice the middle letter of 25d hadn’t been filled in. My actual solving time would have been about 30:30 as it took me about a minute to talk myself out of OBE as it didn’t fit the wordplay, and then get to the correct answer.

13d was my COD, but there were several others I liked – 15a, 17a, 24a, 5s, 7d & 20d. An enjoyable canter, well, trot at least.

cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this

Across
1 BOGOTA = A + TOGO + Bumpkin all rev
4 ST(OP)OVE + R
10 WATER CLOSET – usually abbreviated to W.C., so a reference to the comic actor W.C. Fields
11 LAG – dd
12 OUTFLOW = OUT + WOLF rev
14 ALDGATE = LaiD in AGATE (stone)
15 ELECTRONIC MAIL = (REMOTE CLINICAL)*
17 QUEEN ANNE’S LACE = QUEEN/ACE (pack members) about SENNA (medicinal plant) rev + Look
21 ORC + HARD
22 EAR(THE)N
23 SKIp
24 PROFITEROLE = ThE gRoOm in PROFILE (seen from one side)
26 UNSTEADY = (TUNED SAY)*
27 AT REST = A + TEST about References
Down
1 BOW LOVER
2 GUT = TUG rev
3 TART + LET
5 TASMANIAN DEVIL = (MANTIS AND A)* + EVIL
6 POTSDAM = MAD + STOP all rev
7 VOLCANIC ASH = CAN I? + CASH all after VOL (book)
8 RUGGED – dd – If a floor has a rug on then it might be referred to as rugged.
9 BLOW HOT AND COLD – dd – Sirocco and Mistral are hot and cold winds respectively
13 THE MUNCHIES = (ITCHES)* about Hunger + (MENU)* – an excellent &lit and my COD.
16 REIN + VEST
18 EXAM + PaLE
19 SUR(Freight)E + IT
20 HONSHU = U (Uranium, radioactive element) after N/S (poles) in HOH (H₂O, water)
25 ODE = “OWED” – I can’t believe I missed this one out!

40 comments on “Times 25746”

  1. A great grid with lots of long answers in quite quickly. Then the problem of finding the rest. EXAMPLE, for example, took quite a while. Ditto for SURFEIT. But LOI was HONSHU. A devil of a clue. Agree that THE MUNCHIES was probably the best today.
  2. Like v1 above I made a very slow start on this and so it continued, unfortunately until I eventually completed the grid in 64 minutes. I was on the point of resorting to aids as the hour approached, but a sudden flash of inspiration guided me to PROFITEROLE at 24.

    But for all that effort I still ended with one wrong at 25dn where I had toyed for ever with OBE and then settled on OLE. Mixing cultural traditions rather nicely, I reasoned that OLE! is a tribute paid to the skill of a Spanish bullfighter while “it’s said” signals a homophone of ‘0 LEI’ or what you have when you arrive in Polynesia and the natives haven’t yet got round to honouring you.

    Edited at 2014-03-28 03:00 am (UTC)

      1. Not sure I’ve got the hang of this lark. I thought the point of a momble was that it didn’t actually exist?
        1. A far better hang than me. You’re quite right, of course. A nice narrative, any way.
          1. Thanks.

            In my theory above, the homophone is only supposed to apply to ‘lei’ and not include the zero, but I can’t edit it now.

  3. 42m but with HONSOU, having inexplicably entered water as HOO.

    I found this crossword just the right level, where I’d seem to be stuck for a while but slowly things fell into place. In fact I’ve generally enjoyed the standard recently, and tip my hat to the setters and the new editor.

  4. 20m. HONSHU my last in. I’m not really convinced by HOH for water. I like THE MUNCHIES.
    10ac reminds me of the old gag: what’s the difference between W. C. Fields and Flushing Meadows?
      1. I remember (dimly) being informed that this was the correct representation of the water molecule, being the combination of a hydrogen ion with an OH radical.
  5. Enjoyable crossword, one of many recently. Straightforward, once Saint Anne’s Lace corrected… though I did put olé for 25dn, for reasons that completely escape me now.

  6. Found it hard going, but, encouraged by Penfold’s kind comment yesterday, I persevered… and got all but one in about 90 (!) minutes. That one was 20dn, where I, like Pootle, had honsou, thinking I would finish the week with a momble, but no, ’twas my chemistry that let me down. I incorrectly thought H2O=HOO. So a simple error then (if that’s how these mombles work…)

    Happy to work out QUEEN ANNES LACE, remembering the plant from the days long ago when my bumpkin brothers used to try smoking it in the fields.

    CsOD to THE MUNCHIES and WATER CLOSET, both of which held me up for far too long.

    Thanks for sorting out PROFITEROLE, couldn’t for the life of me see how that one worked.

  7. Just failed the 30m target but I blame the iPad for skipping letters (well I have to blame something).. Back in the day, Chemistry A-level would have had water expressed diagramatically as H-O-H so no problem there. All in all, an enjoyable week.
  8. After some recent trauma a real pleasure to solve a good standard puzzle with no eccentricities. A pleasing variety of excellent clues leading to interesting words and phrases as answers. 25 minutes to solve with THE MUNCHIES a real stand out clue.
  9. All correct in a lot of minutes with a long interruption, not this time my tame interrupter. But it had the same effect – I was struggling (at a dead stop, really) in the nether regions, and coming back after the break turned the beasts into a breeze. Perhaps we should campaign for advertising breaks on the online version.
    Unlike Vinyl, I got AR’s BANE through the wordplay, once I stopped thinking about wolves and mules, panicking about two plants in one clue and thinking it had to be BANE at the end. ST AGNES’ BANE sounds as if it ought to exist.
    THE MUNCHIES (Hey hey we’re…) took for ever, as I kept trying to thing of something Goonish and failed to translate “itches” into “craving”.
    I nearly had DUE at 25, but was puzzled by the fact that it wasn’t a soundalike, it just was.
    HONSHU my last in, after UNSTEADY meant that I didn’t have to look for a radioactive element other than Uranium. No issue (indeed, some admiration for) HOH to represent water.
    Odd fact of the day: two East End clues, neither of which dropped aitches or had to rhyme dubiously with something. Well played, me old fairisle!
    A good, chewy set of clues, less irritating than yesterday’s

    Edited at 2014-03-28 09:44 am (UTC)

  10. Blame it on reverting to the old tradition of leaving one clue to keep the Times’ premium phone line happy.
  11. 23min – initially put DUE at 25dn, which made SE hard to finish: therefore ODE was LOI.
  12. 11 minutes – I was definitely on the setters wavelength here. Don’t recall seeing the HOH device before but it was a clever way to clue HONSHU – last in was QUEEN ANNES LACE so thanks for the helpful wordplay. Excellent puzzle!
  13. After yesterday’s monster managed to sort this one out in just over half an hour. An enjoyable excursion, would have done it quicker but my dear wife who is from the South East of England persuaded me that 23ac had to be Lea(p) which apparently is a river that runs (hence runner) from Luton to the Thames.

    Must say I had my doubts about it right from the beginning. Even assuming that such a river does exist, it would surely be even more obscure than yesterday’s Benares.

    Happy week-end all.

    Nairobi Wallah

    1. I forgot to mention that I put in LEA. I only realised it was wrong when I saw that 13dn had to be THE MUNCHIES. It can’t be obscure, because I’ve heard of it.
      1. Ditto my experience exactly and I’m aware of the river. Unfortunately I have a Luton postcode which has a detrimental effect on my house insurance although I’ve never set foot in the place in my life.
      2. Just because it’s obscure doesn’t mean you won’t have heard of it, and vice versa. As a breed, cruciverbalists know all sorts of obscure words such as cruciverbalist.
        Now, Queen Anne’s Lace is another thing entirely. Unless you’ve heard of it (which I hadn’t), it’s impossible to solve. By the way, I fell headlong into the OBE trap.
        1. My tongue was in my cheek when I made that comment.
          I managed to solve QUEEN ANNE’S LACE without knowing it. It’s not exactly easy but doable if you can spot the queen and the ace.
  14. 11:14 enjoyable minutes spent on this one – I loved 10a when I realised the ‘Fields’ connection. The Munchies wrote itself in as I had a terrible attack of the same yesterday.
  15. My deficiencies in chemistry, Japanese geography, attention to detail and crossord-solving made me another victim of the great Honsou debacle. Ho hum. I think I over-thought the question mark and decided that H, two Os was what was going on. That was my LOI and by then I was trying to finish off for a respectable time.

    Thanks for explaining profiterole Dave. Like Z8 I toyed with Saint and Bane at either end of the dreaded plant clue and my first thought for the runner/jump was Lea.

    In my bumpkin days we used to try smoking hogweed, cow parsley’s chunkier cousin.

    Nice puzzle.

  16. Very nice puzzle, a good workout but with lots of elegant clues and humour.
  17. Finished in just under an hour, while waiting for my MRI (or IRM as the French insist on calling it). Put in OBE as my LOI as my name was called, now realise it was wrong, and doesn’t fit the word play.

    Mr Pedantic me says: Hydrogen bonding makes water rather more complicated than just HOH, although as steam / water vapour, single molecules can exist.

  18. Well, at least I finished this one, an hour on and off, but admit to looking up QUEEN ANNE’S LACE, which I then realised I’d known, but couldn’t quite dredge up. FOI LAG, LOI BOGOTA GUT crosser. PROFITEROLE was the real show stopper for me, even with all the crossers apart from EXAMPLE and ODE. My COD.

    A nice one with no obscurities and everything fitting well – once seen. Thank you, setter.

    1. Well, I wust demur. An obscurity is something I’ve never heard of, such as Queen Anne’s Lace. Maybe it’s a geographical/political thing, but I doubt if that soubriquet is popular north of the border.
  19. Just over the hour, and all of it pleasant. Couldn’t parse QALace (ta, Dave) and took forever to remember that a vest isn’t a waistcoat. When I look at the ticks next to clues I liked, today showed up too many to list.
  20. 17 mins, so back to some kind of form after yesterday.

    QUEEN ANNE’S LACE was my LOI and I needed the wordplay to get it. I have to confess that I didn’t bother to parse THE MUNCHIES and PROFITEROLE, and I only saw the parsing for HONSHU post-solve.

    Edited at 2014-03-28 07:05 pm (UTC)

  21. About 30 minutes for this clever puzzle, ending with REINVEST, which in itself was pretty clever. I didn’t see the WC Fields connection til arriving here, so that’s a much better (very fine) clue now that I get it. A lot of good noes today. This took a bit of work to get into, but once in, a pretty steady solve. Regards to all.
  22. 17:04 for me.

    As with so many things to do with food and drink, I’d never come across THE MUNCHIES before, so that was my LOI, solved purely from the wordplay. At least they were offset by the East London answers which went straight in (with no checked letters needed) – apart that is from LEA, which for some reason didn’t occur to me.

    I’d passed by QUEEN ANNE’S GATE this morning on my way from St James’s Park underground station to see an exhibition at the Royal Academy (the park itself very pleasant in the hazy sunshine), and spent some time imagining that the answer was going to be QUEEN ANNE’S SAGE (“pack members” = QUEENS; “beginning to look” = AGE, “look” perhaps being equivalent to “look a bit ancient”, like me – Sigh!), but decided that there might be a better alternative, and luckily found it by searching through the alphabet.

    20dn was one of those annoying clues where HONSHU looked the obvious answer from the checked letters but I couldn’t make head or tail of HOH = “water” for simply ages.

    Another very fine puzzle.

    1. DNF for me – I’m really going to have to stop trying to do this puzzle during surgery.

      I wasn’t anywhere near the setter’s wavelength, and had to grind this one down slowly. But I was stumped by OUTFLOW and TARTLET. Is OUTFLOW really synonymous with “running away”? I suppose, at a stretch, it is. But, unless I misunderhend the clue, it seems unnecessarily inelegant to me.

      It was, however, a good puzzle. I enjoyed (despite myself) WATER CLOSET, and also ELECTRONIC MAIL, the latter being my COD.

      Note to [pipkirby] – take no notice of the French and their perverse abbreviations – they only do it to annoy. They are a nation that can’t even get “DNA” right, for goodness sake. We long ago informed the world that English was the language of international aviation; it’s about time we did the same for medicine before someone gets hurt. While we’re at it, we really ought also to tell them that many medicines can be given orally, rather than the other way. In any event, I hope all went well.

      One good thing about MRI: most problems can be fixed in Photoshop rather than resorting to surgery.

  23. >They are a nation that can’t even get “DNA” right, for goodness sake.

    I assume that in France “DNA” is already taken by the Association Nationale Dyslexique 🙂

    1. I still get confused by the appropriation of STD by the UK medical profession. To many of my generation it remains the telephone system that allowed you to dial anywhere in the country without speaking to an operator.
  24. Spouse got “the munchies” from the anagram, but it was new to both of us

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