Times 25755

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
15:52 on the Club timer. It’s always hard to tell if you’ve been especially fast or slow at this time of night (currently 2nd of only 4 solvers, so not much to give a comparison), but that time felt about right for a nice solve, with some well-disguised definitions and always elegant surfaces. One of those puzzles where an early Q and Z made me half-look for a pangram, but the V and X never showed up. Required general knowledge along the usual lines: a songbird, some music, the Bible, and a little bit of (Irish) politics, ladies and gentlemen.

Across
1 ALLOCATE – (CO.)rev. in ALL, ATE.
5 OPAQUE – Old, P.A., QUE(“that” in French).
10 DUNNO – Name x 2 in DUO.
11 NEFARIOUS – (ResistanceNOUSEIFA)*.
12 TAOISEACH – TAOISM, EACH. The Prime Minister out to the West, as in Ireland; literally “the chief”. Watch out also for the deputy PM, the Tánaiste.
13 OGLER – lOnGcLuEoR.
14 OFFLOAD – (FOOLDAFT)*.
16 NEARBY – NEAR(“stingy”), BY(“times”). Given our continuing economic travails, perhaps this could replace “You’ve never had it so good” as the motto for future governments.
18 SELDOM – Disease in (MOLES)rev. “Plants” as in the moles placed by an intelligence service.
20 CAPITAL – CAP(as in the verb, “better”), ITALy.
22 OLDIESOLDIER minus his first and last letters. Not sure how far back in the history of cinema you have to go for a film to be officially an “oldie”, but the forties would certainly do it.
23 BAMBOOZLE – Book, (MA)rev., Left in BOOZE.
25 LEASTWAYS – [ST., WAY] in LEAS.
26 OPINE – 0, PINE.
27 THEORY – (EH?)rev. in TORY. Since puzzles are prepared well in advance of publication, this must be coincidence, and in no way a comment on the second home arrangements of any particular MP whose expenses may be currently under scrutiny in the press…
28 BOUNDERS – UNDER in (SOB)rev.
 
Down
1 ADDITION – ADDICTION minus the Cape.
2 LINGO – Large, IN, GO.
3 CROSSWORD SETTER – SET in (WORSTRECORDS)* with the unusually brief – and self-referential – definition “me”.
4 TANKARD – ANKARA, the old city minus its concluding A, inside T.D., the Irish equivalent of M.P. Short for Teachta Dála.
6 PERSONAL PRONOUN – ON O.R.(“about men”, as in the Other Ranks) inside PERSONAL (“offensive”) PUN; and another tiny definition – “us, possibly” for a long clue.
7 QUODLIBET – (QUITEBOLD)*.
8 ENSURE – Republican in ENSUE.
9 AFGHAN – GrowtH inside A FAN.
15 FIELDFARE – FIELD(“competition”), FARE(“manage”).
17 BLUENESS – BLUE(“unhappy”), NESS(“point”).
19 MOB CAP – (COMB)*, (PA)rev. If you picture the traditional Victorian serving-wench, this is probably the sort of headwear she’d be wearing. Not that I spend my time imagining Victorian serving-wenches, honest.
20 COMES TO – COME(“show up”) on STOP minus the Pressure; initially hard-to-spot definition in “makes”, as in “adds up to”.
21 JOB LOT – where one sort of JOB LOT might be the characters in that particular book of the Old Testament.
24 ZAIRE – Z(mathematical unknown), [1 in (ERA)rev.] “Once” because this is the former name of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

50 comments on “Times 25755”

  1. But it took an awful lot longer than it took Tim. Not getting the second long down clue was a major problem and I had to start in the SW with only the wonderfully self-referential 3dn complete. (This made me think the first part of 6dn would be WORDPLAY.)

    Fooled again (or 23ed) by the TD abbreviation and by “what” = EH. Drat!

    PS: tomorrow’s blog will be up later than usual as I won’t get home until mid-morning. Apologies in advance.

    Edited at 2014-04-08 01:19 am (UTC)

  2. This was an enjoyable solve for the most part but I nearly lost the will to live what with being expected to remember two intersecting Irish parliament terms. Not quite sure why we have “old” in 4dn. QUODLIBET was unfamiliar but I expect I have met it before.

    Edited at 2014-04-08 01:19 am (UTC)

      1. Yes, of course that was my first thought but failing that or Petra I’d have expected it to be a city that is currently known as something else.
  3. Same as Vinyl, a DNF thanks to not knowing FIELDFARE. I’m surprised I was able to get the spelling of TAOetc. right. Who–for that matter, who the hell– thought up the spelling system of Irish? If I recall, Zaire was formerly known as the Dem.Rep. of Congo, also; as opposed to the People’s R of C.
  4. A most enjoyable puzzle with a perfect example of how to set a Biblical clue, I thought. As an old fogey who winces in other papers’ puzzles every time a setter refers to his own pseudonym – or, even worse, to that of one of his or her stable-mates – I greatly appreciated the understated 3 down (as well as its counterpart at 6d).

    I too was a little surprised that Ankara should be described as old, but Wikipedia has ‘a very old city with various Hittite, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman archaeological sites’.

    Lots of very good stuff, but my COD goes to COMES TO for its well-hidden literal just ahead of my last in BOUNDERS – such a fine, British word in a rolled-up umbrella kind of way.

    And thanks to the setter for the clueing of the Irish PM – I might actually be able to remember how to spell it now. FIELDFARE also from the cryptic. Kudos to Topical for an excellent time.

    Edited at 2014-04-08 03:12 am (UTC)


  5. All done bar two in about 30mins, and then another 5 or so for JOB LOT and THEORY. After the slangy DUNNO, I confidently had in ‘bog ofs’ (unparsed…) until LEASTWAYS put paid to that theory.

    DNK QUODLIBET, but managed to get the remaining letters in the right places, and I couldn’t parse TANKARD or PERSONAL PRONOUN, putting them in from the definitions, so thanks for explaining those two.

  6. Time of 34 minutes compounded by two computer errors, the first of which made for a late start, the second wiped my half-completed grid. I need a personal neutrino at such times.
    So probably about 25 minutes actual solving, an awful lot of them in the SW, not helped by imaginative completions of PERSONAL ? including REMARKS (“about men”, quite clever I thought) and SERVICES, which I suppose could be a sort of double entendre if Kenneth Williams says it.
    Thanks to setter for guiding us through the Gaelic and helpfully showing us what QUODLIBET means- knew the word, couldn’t previously have defined it.
    Credit to the setter for being absolutely precise in formulating the clue to AFGHAN – from somewhere… Though my nephew, familiar with the place in his role as a TA captain, always refers to the country itself as Afghan.
    Good one, lots of cunning. CoD to anything in that SW region. Except BLUENESS. Could have been anything-ness.
    And congrats to Tim for untangling the ones I left tangled, and for an excellent time.

    Edited at 2014-04-08 07:10 am (UTC)

  7. Another excellent crossword that didn’t feel as chewy as yesterday’s but took me five minutes longer to complete in 17.45. Nothing to add to compliments already expressed above.
  8. Another very enjoyable 25 minute puzzle with some classy clues. Like others I now have a way of spelling the Irish PM

    I don’t recall MOB CAP appearing before with its roots back in the French Revolution – a good clue. But surely the best must be THEORY with its highly topical Maria problem connotations, however accidental

    1. There was thinking I’d improve my scientific education still further, and googling Maria Theory expecting to discover another fascinating digression on the heat death of the universe by a great female scientist that I needed to add to my pantheon. Not so! It’s “let them eat mortgages” Miller. I’m almost disappointed!
      1. Sorry about that – but thanks for the idea; I shall store it away in the memory banks and possibly wheel it out at some future point!
  9. 15m, with relief that the bits of QUODLIBET were in the right place and gratitude to the setter for guiding me through the spelling of TAOISEACH, which like ulaca I might even be able to remember now.
  10. 28:55 .. a thorough workout and a hugely enjoyable one.

    Nothing to add to above comments, really. Another vote of thanks to the setter for the aide-mémoire for spelling TAOISEACH, and for a top-notch puzzle generally.

  11. Another of those strange synchronicities where the same answer appears in both the Quickie and this one (OK I know one is plural, but the principle is there).
  12. 40m but no FIELDFARE. I’d got as far as FIELD_A_E then ran through all possible _A_E none of which seemed to mean manage (though I now see that FARE does). Frustratingly I even thought FIELDFARE rings a bell but chose to ignore it.

    Early on I thought of TAOIS to start 12A but disregarded it thinking there can’t be a word beginning like that but realised later it was TAOISEACH (isn’t it pronounced something like teashop?).

  13. 20 minutes and it seems like most it was FIELDFARE that was taking up a lot of the time MOB CAP also from wordplay alone
  14. . . . with LOI FIELDFARE from the cryptic rather than GK. A satisfying puzzle.
  15. Excellent and enjoyable puzzle. I particularly liked DUNNO, and was grateful, like Sotira, for the reminder of how to spell TAOISEACH (pronounced, I think, something like “tee-sh’k”). My only minor quibble was the same as Jack’s – the reference to Ankara as an “old city”, which the setter no doubt intended as misdirection, but which seemed to me questionably fair. Almost every city in the world would count as old on that basis.
  16. 29 mins. I was going to blame doing the puzzle post-lunch rather than at my usual time but it looks like most of you found it tricky. I had the most trouble with 6dn and the SE quadrant, and BOUNDERS was my LOI. I should really have solved the BAMBOOZLE/ZAIRE crossers much faster than I did, but with both clues I was much too slow to see the correct order in which to assemble the constituent parts of the wordplay. At 23ac I was looking to fit the reversed parent into the hard stuff, and at 24dn I just didn’t think about putting the unknown at the start of the answer until I got the Z checker from 23ac. Very poor by the standards I’ve set myself over the last several months.

    I’d like to add my thanks to the setter for the aide-memoire for the spelling of TAOISEACH.

  17. After solving all but two quite quickly, the brain seized up (either from exertion or astonishment) and I had to put the paper down and return after a strong coffee to solve COMES TO and BOUNDERS. Couldn’t get CAMPS UP out of my head and, having gone through my repertoire of cads, rotters and stinkers, I was glad of the wordplay to remind me of the required type of louse.

    Enjoyed the succinct definitions at 3 and 6, and applaud anyone who managed to get FIELDFARE from the wordplay alone.

    By the way, when did crossword compilers become crossword setters? I’m not complaining, just interested. Is there a technical difference I’m unaware of? Perhaps “setter” is the type of word cruciverbalists find more interesting, with its many different possible meanings.

    1. Easier to mislead us with clues about dog breeds if they call themselves ‘setters’
      1. I think it better describes what they do as well.A ‘Compiler’ is someone who puts something together from various sources. A ‘Setter’ gives one a task etc. Of course, I have other words for them when I can’t solve their puzzles!
      2. I’m sure you’re right: dogs, coagulants, stars going below the horizon, menders of bones ……. but if compilers are setters, are solvers settees?
        1. >… but if compilers are setters, are solvers settees?

          Yes, at least according to 21dn in No. 25,739: “Comfy seat for the solver, might you say? (6)” (20 March this year).

  18. The book in question is the Bible, and the characters are Job and Lot (the nephew of Abram, who features in Genesis). His wife famously got turned into a pillar of salt: “Remember Lot’s wife” – one for Dean!
  19. All correct on the iPad today. 4h 34m from start to finish.
    FOI Allocate, LOI Blueness.
    Thanks Tim for explaining Tankard, Personal Pronoun and Nearby.
    Got the unlikely-looking Quodlibet from wordplay.
  20. 29.27. Some neat defs en route (moles, stage, personal). I know the word quodlibet (and its etymology) yet hadn’t the faintest what it meant – if asked would have hazarded a drink of some kind assembled at the pub’s discretion. Maybe it means that as well, or it ought to.
  21. About 30 minutes or so, ending with the PERSONAL…/CAPITAL crossing. Didn’t know of the FIELDFARE or the MOB CAP, wordplay only for those. I enjoyed the appearance of a bit of slang when I saw DUNNO. I still don’t understand 2D. Why is French LINGO? To me, lingo is jargon, not a foreign language, so I thought that a bit odd. Otherwise, though, a very well put together puzzle, and blog. Thanks and regards.
    1. It’s quite common for your typical, monolingual Brit to say, with a dash of the Wodehouse, that (s)he can’t speak the lingo. In Oxford, and probably all the others, as such.
  22. I found this a bit trickier than yesterday’s, but a most enjoyable post-lunch solve. About half an hour. Again, it flowed roughly NW to SE – FOI ALLOCATE, LOI BLUENESS. Lots of elegant, quirky clues. I heartily second those expressing gratitude for the aide-memoire for spelling TAOISEACH!

    At last, FIELDFARE, a bird I’d heard of! And I think we got off lightly with JOB and LOT – “book characters”, methinks, gives a staggering range of possibilities. Let’s hear it for Ahaziah, Athaliah, Amaziah, Uzziah, Hezekiah, Jeconiah, Zedekiah …

  23. My GK wasn’t up to standard today, and I often got misdirected where it was good. Typical was foolishly thinking the ‘us’ was going to be SETTERS, then didn’t twig to the ‘me’. The compensation was that I had a long sit a waiting room, and if this had been a 30 minute solve I would have had nothing to do for the next hour and a half plus.
  24. Ah so the singer is a bird -I thought it must be something like Matilda Fieldfare a famous twenties entertainer.
  25. in = burning: ‘The fire is in’/’The fire is burning’.

    I thought that Ankara was old because it has more things in it that are old than most other cities have. Possibly.

    Knew quodlibet because it comes in the Goldberg Variations.

  26. 12:25 for me – almost exactly the same time as yesterday. Before I had BOUNDERS in place (having resisted my initial temptation to bung in BOUNCERS), I thought 20dn was going to be COMES ON, and then realised that I’d have to decide between that and COMES IN, so I was relieved to see O turn up as the final letter.

    Another very enjoyable puzzle.

  27. An earlier question on 25747 asked why burning was shown as ‘in’ in the wordplay.

    I don’t get it either. Would someone be kind enough ……

    Thanks.

    1. Those of us brought up in the days before central heating remember the importance of keeping the fire in overnight.
  28. Sorry for the the late post but only just got home from a very busy day!
    Please help.
    How is stingy = near?
    I read the blog daily but rarely post. Thanks to all for their expertise and inciteful and often witty blogs.
    Barry J
  29. Very pleased with completion time tonight. Grateful for the parsing of moles as plants, which I had not worked out. Also, like others, grateful for the setter’s lead enabling me to spell ‘taoiseach’; I doubt that I’ll remember it come tomorrow.
    I see that we have the awful captcha back.
  30. Hi Barry,
    It’s a straightforward synonym. Near is an old fashioned term for miserliness.
  31. Well, this was a chewy one, hence my late arrival here. About an hour for me, with the SE corner taking most of the time. PERSONAL PRONOUN was my NTLOI, and BOUNDERS by LOI.

    Is it just me, or has the Times cryptic moved up a gear or two in the last couple of weeks?

    I’d never heard of MOB CAP, and wasn’t convinced even after I’d put it in. And as for TAOISEACH, well, I got it from the wordplay but I remain deeply skeptical over the inclusion of obscure foreign words. If there isn’t a decent English word for something, it’s probably not important. That philosophy got me through anatomy, and I stand by it.

    Accident of the Day: all I can say is that it involved a ball-point pen, and I’m having the X-ray framed.

      1. Quite so. I’ve learned, over the years, that there is no human artefact or natural object that someone, somewhere will not misuse in an imaginative and injurious way.
  32. My favourite is in Biber’s Battaglia, which sounds like discordant 1920s but is actually about 1670, with drunken soldiers all singing songs from their different homelands simultaneously.

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