Times 25,749 – Für Elise

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
20 minutes to solve on blogging day, so towards the easier end of the spectrum. No real question marks, a gentle, pleasing puzzle.

Today we celebrate the anniversary of the founding of The Royal Airforce, The Canadian Royal Airforce and The Mumbai Fire Brigade. But putting all of those events in the shade is the anniversary of the birth in 1775 of a most influential and until last year an unknown woman (pictured).

Hopefully some non-mathematicians will have heard of a Poisson distribution discovered by the prolific French mathematician Simeon Poisson (1781-1840).Papers found recently in France have revealled that Simeon had a sister Avril who, because of the way women were treated in those times, published her work in her brother’s name. It is no longer clear how much of Simeon’s output was really work done by Avril.

In 1794 she married an unknown eccentric Swedish astronomer Olaf Proil which led her to study the planets. There is evidence that the theoretical proof of the Jupiter-Neptune combined gravity theory (which suggests that a perfect alignment of the Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune slightly alters the Earth’s tilt) was her work. This theory is today being studied by climatologists as a possible explanation for the radical change in our weather patterns.

Of interest to music lovers will be her long affair with Beethoven who to preserve her anonymity called her his “immortal beloved” and referred to her by the pet name of Elise. Letters from him amongst her papers illustrate his extensive use of her theory of discordant harmonics in his compositions and his devistation when she died in 1813.

Across
1 LOWBROW – LOW-B-ROW;
5 SHOTGUN – bun in the oven clue;
9 MAT – MAT(e); “e” from (roll)E(r);
10 GO,TO,THE,DOGS – the UK if the mooted sale of the Red Arrows to a Russian industrialist goes ahead;
11 ABOVE,ALL – A-BO(VEAL)L; BOL as in Spag-Bol;
12 BROWSE – B-ROWS-(offic)E;
15 ALTO – ALTO(get-her);
16 UNEARTHING – U-NEAR-THING;
18 HEART’SEASE – HEART-sounds like “sieze”; today’s flower;
19 HEAR – HE(A)R(o); women can much better now bra-wire is insulated to prevent interference with mobile phone reception;
22 BEL,AIR – BE-LAIR; posh end of LA;
23 JOE,LOUIS – JO(b)-(seoul I)*; the brown bomber;
25 COUNTERPART – COUNTER-PART(y);
27 SAD – S(h)AD; the news that the new Crossword Editor is trying to ban crossword blogs appearing on the day of the puzzle;
28 IGNORED – (grid one)*; the coming European Directive on passive drinking I suspect;
29 ENDGAME – END-GAME; where chess grand masters come into their own;
 
Down
1 LAMBADA – LAM(BAD)A; not suitable for the Tea Dance that I run;
2 WITHOUT,FAIL – WITHOUT-FAIL; blow it=slang for cock it up;
3 REGRET – RE-GRET(a);
4 WET,BLANKET – W-ET-BLANKET;
5 SITE – Pisa perhaps where in 1173 they started to build a tower soon after Pope Alexander the Third decreed on April 1st that in future the ratio pi (3.1) would be taken to be 3.0 exactly to better reflect the Christian Trinity;
6 OVERRATE – OVER-RATE; a missed opportunity for a cricket clue;
7 GOO – GOO(d);
8 NEST,EGG – G(GETS)EN all reversed;
13 WHITE,RUSSIA – Belarus; avoid the White Russian cocktail if want to stay sane;
14 PASSIONATE – PAS(S-IONA)TE; Avril and Ludwig;
17 STRICTER – (critters)*;
18 HIBACHI – HI-BACH-I; Japenese barbecue where the use of homogenised Flora P-Oil (dihydrogen monoxide) is recommended;
20 RESIDUE – RESID(U)E;
21 SLATED – Royal Society scheme to decimalise time based on 100 ticks to the tock and 20 tocks to the day;
24 ARID – A(R)ID;
26 URN – sounds like “earn” – basis of old schoolboy joke;

74 comments on “Times 25,749 – Für Elise”

  1. DNK Heartsease, which made the cross w Passionate a problem. Thank you for a notably pleasing blog.
  2. I have to clock off soon so in the interest of everybody’s sanity I’d better now give a list of what is and isn’t true in the blog

    The founding of the RAF, RCAF and the Mumbai Fire Brigade are all true as are Simeon Poisson and his distribution.

    Avril Poisson is an invention from the French Poisson D’Avril which means April Fool; Olaf Proil is an anagram; the stuff about planets, Beethoven and discordant harmonics is all made up. The lady in the picture is a colleague of Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace who is credited with being the first computer programmer.

    At 10A we are not selling the Red arrows; at 19A the insulation is invented; at 27A the Editor is not trying to ban crossword blogs; at 28A there is no such thing as “passive drinking”; at 5D the Pope never did any such thing; at 18D Flora P-Oil is an anagram and dihydrogen monoxide is HOH which is water; at 21D even the RS isn’t that daft!

    1. I owe you an apology Jimbo. I only speed-read your preamble and glanced at the answers without reading your comments. That has always been a bad habit of mine, both here and on fifteensquared, and as a result I missed your masterpiece of deception.
  3. No problems with this one just after midnight last night, 10 minutes with everything falling in to place.
  4. Blog of the Year. The puzzle pales in comparison (around 20 minutes, LOI Passionate).

    Well done Jimbo. Regards to all.

  5. As a non online-subscriber, imagine my horror when I sat down with my coffee and crumpet, chucked in a few accross clues, then realised a printing blunder would cast a gloom over my otherwise sunny day. Not well pleased!
  6. Agree with Kevin and Pip. Stratospheric blog. Let’s hope no MEPs do the puzzle – seems unlikely. A passive drinking ban would pretty well define the whole project. Good to see a ref. to the fiercest of Beckett’s plays. White heat.
  7. Nice one Jimbo, came to it late in the day after a Poisson d’avril golf day (fish for lunch of course) but it only took 12 minutes, got more pleasure from the blog than the puzzle.
  8. I enjoyed this one – I didn’t find it as easy as some others here (but then again, I never do), but it held the promise of completability, up to which it lived. No COD stood out for me, but on the other hand none struck me as unfair or flawed. Sort of a meat-and-two-veg puzzle.

    Re. ENDGAME – went to see it on the basis that it had Michael Gambon in it, then realized I should probably have done a little more research before shelling out for the tickets. If I were to say “rivetting”, it would have to be followed by ” ‘s more fun.” It may be a great play, but that’s seven hours of my life I’ll never get back.

  9. 16:24 for me. Things were going pretty well and I was congratulating myself on getting HIBACHI and BEL AIR quite quickly, despite their being at the periphery of my knowledge. But then I became hopelessly stuck on LOWBROW, ABOVE ALL, WITHOUT FAIL and WET BLANKET. Eventually I twigged the last of these, after which the rest fell briskly. Just one of those days, I guess.
  10. People seem to be quite laid back about the printing of the wrong clues in the paper. I’m not. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to solve the puzzle on the assumption that there was some kind of April fool trick afoot which would be revealed when sufficient clues were solved.
    Waste of time, and, as I only buy the horrible Murdoch paper for the crossword, a waste of money too.
    Many thanks for the entertaining blog: I needed something to cheer me up.
    Letter to the editor called for.
  11. Did anyone have a go at completing the implied puzzle from the Down clues alone?

    I got the bottom half but struggling with the top:
    1. Uxxxx
    4. xxBxTxRx
    8. BARE ESSENTIALS
    10.ExxxxxxxD
    11. SHOVE
    12. LxPxxx
    14. DRABBEST
    17. PxRxxxIx (portrait?)
    18. CRUSOE
    20. NAAFI
    22. SOAP OPERA
    24. COUNTERSIGNING
    25. SNOWED IN
    26. SCARF

    DOWN
    1. UMBRELLA PINE
    2. xxRxx
    3. xxExxxxxx
    4. xxSxxx
    5. BENIDORM
    6. TWINS
    7. ROLLOVERS
    9. GET THE HANG OF
    13. PORTADOWN
    15. BURROUGHS
    16. AIRSPEED
    19. KANSAN
    21. I KNOW
    23. EVITA

    Did anyone get 2,3 & 4 Down?

    cheers, Tim

    1. Give us the clues and we’ll have a crack! Seems it was only provincial editions of the paper version that got the wrong down clues.
      1. Good point!

        2. Proceeds with one leg below caught by trap (5)
        3. Leaving clothes hanging in bathroom initially, men shower (9)
        4. World leader’s departed from game, standing up king (6)

        Any thoughts?

        Tim

        1. 2. CHOPS – HOPS (proceeds with one leg) under C(aught)
          3. EXHIBITOR – EXIT around H(anging) I(n) B(athroom), + OR (men)
          4. ARTHUR – (e)ARTH (World leader’s departed from) + RU reversed (game standing up).

          Looks like you have some refactoring to do!

          1. I reckon you have 6dn wrong – the 3rd letter has to be a C, then 8ac could be BLOW HOT AND COLD.
            1. Excellent – thanks. Only just had time to come back to this.
              I put a guess in for 6d. Which must have been wrong.

              Clue was:
              Seeds not exactly doubles outsiders at the outset (5)

              Late at night I put in TWINS; my train of thought being coloured by the comment from the new crossword editor’s interview that he liked a misdirecting literal here and there.

              Working with your BLOW HOT AND COLD suggestion that would need to fit xxCxS.

              Any thoughts?

              cheers, Tim

      2. No, mine is presumably a London edition (unless Balham is now counted as the provinces)… and that was wrong.
  12. The thought that the northern edition’s crossword might be a complicated April Fool’s joke was reinforced by the clue for 28 across – Paid no attention to grid, one printed incorrectly (7). It took me a good half an hour to conclude that no, really it was just a cock-up. April fool? – somebody is.
  14. Well, finally got round (on Wednesday) to doing Tuesday’s, courtesy of bigtone53, who supplied the Down clues. A pleasing romp, under half an hour, even though I had to guess the half-remembered HEARTSEASE and enter the entirely unknown HIBACHI purely from the wordplay. Back in the day, any reference to “Viola” would have meant a pleasant memory-ramble unpicking threads from Twelfth Night. No more, alas.

    I hope the wretched and stupid ENDGAME doesn’t entirely put people off Beckett – Krapp’s Last Tape is intensely moving.

    1. Now I prefer Endgame to K’s Last Tape but I wouldn’t call the latter wretched and stupid. Perhaps you’re disturbed by the merciless rendering of the family vice tightened to distraction? I find it searing and also beautiful.
  15. Several hundred days late and numerous dollars short, but I’ve only just come across your brilliant poisson d’avril, Jim! I have to thank Olivia for that. She alerted me to it after I mentioned poissons d’avril in my blog. Thank you!

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