Times 25768: Garçon!

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 25:14

In retrospect should have seen some answers much more quickly. But I was having a bit of a dose of blogger’s nerves, so wanted to check everything against parsings before I put them in. Also had to solve bottom to top, finishing in the NE, then 2dn. Just noticed we’re a J short of the pangram. Any takers? (I have one very obscure solution at present.)

Found from an interview that I now have two things in common with Anax. We both play bass left-handed and both solve on paper with a pen. What’s next? Setterdom?

Lastly, the Club site wouldn’t let me past the log-in screen this morning. Had to go to the Times (paper) site to get the puzzle and put up with the horrible non-Times font. Hope this is not a sign of things to come. Update: it’s working now just before 05:00 BST.

Across

1. SOFTLY. L from “L{engthy}” inside SOFTY, a rather Beano-ish word for a coward/wimp.

4. EMIGRANT. Your GRAN inside EMIT.

10. ABOUT-TURN. TURN (attack) following A, BOUT. Anon and Ulaca have it. It’s more like A + BOUT (attack) + TURN (shock). The “following” is a bit deceptive, but it can work that way.

11. TOQUE. TO{p}, QUE (Fr. for “that”); for several sorts of hat including the one worn by chefs.

12. CHEWING OVER. WIN (victory) by CHE (guerrilla leader … this time — a change from “revolutionary”); then GOVER{nment}.

14. INN. Two defs, including a Swiss/German/Austrian river.

15. TRAYFUL. Anagram of “a fruity” minus I; add L (length).

17. NICEST. ICES (desserts) inside the N&T from “nuts”.

19. STORER. ST (street, way), OR (gold, heraldry), ER (sovereign).

21. CHIMERA. C (caught, cricket), HIM (male), ERA (years). “Later” just tells us where to put the last of the three. We had this two days ago at 9ac.

23. YEP. Yep, it’s inside “eYEPatch”. A good place to start.

24. ASTRINGENTS. Anagram of “trains” signalled by “working”, GENTS. The def is “applications” as in lotions.

26. DHOTI. HOT (sexy) in DI{m}.

27. SCENARIST. Anagram of “Racines”; ST (stumped, more cricket).

29. GUYANESE. GUY (fellow) then AN, ESE sounds like “ease”.

30. DEMEAN. DEAN (cleric) includes ME.

Down

1. SCARCITY. S (south), CAR CITY. The potential anagram of “S. DETROIT” was very tempting to start with.

2. FROZE. Supposed to sound like “throws” (pitches) in the East End. I doubt it somehow. But LOI.

3. LIT. L (learner), IT (computer technology). Another mercifully easy 3-letter answer.

5. MINIVAN. MIN{t}, IVAN.

6. GET CRACKING. EG (say) reversed, T (ton), CRACKING (A1, superb). This is written prominently on an egg farm truck I pass regularly. Doesn’t crack me up though.

7. ACQUIESCE. QUI{p} inside ACES (services, tennis), CE (church).

8. THE END. HE inside TEND. In Swedish, appropriately perhaps, it’s SLUT.

9. CUDGEL. U{nsophisticate}D, GEL (girl, posh) after C (Conservative).

13. INFORMATION. IN, FORM, {r}ATION (helping).

16. ANTIPHONY. PI reversed inside ANTHONY (our Saint).

18. PASS IT ON. T (from “sweethearT”) inside PASSION.

20. RETESTS. Anagram of “setters”.

21. CRIME,A. A very topical clue and answer.

22. PYE-DOG. YE’D inside PO (river) and the final G from “drowninG”. With just the Y, I was expecting our old friend, the AYE-AYE.

25. NOISE. No. 1 SE{t}.

28. AXE. A{1}X, E{ngland}.

58 comments on “Times 25768: Garçon!”

  1. Gave up after 35′, the last 5 at least devoted to 1ac and 2d. Now that I see the answers, I’m not particularly surprised, or disappointed, that I didn’t get them. Thought of ‘aye-aye’, too, but that didn’t seem to have a river in it, and finally thought that PYE-DOG might be a way to spell pi-dog; from my dictionary, I gather that pi-dog is a way to spell pye-dog. I didn’t care too much for this one either, but then I wouldn’t, would I?

    Edited at 2014-04-23 06:28 am (UTC)

  2. Also gave up without 1A and 2D and likewise don’t feel too bad I didn’t get them. I was pleased to get several others I’d never heard of like PYE-DOG. It took me a lot longer to get to that point although I didn’t really note when I reached the impasse. Maybe 45 mins.

    Before I had more than one checker I was fixated on PERONIST at 29a. It felt very Times Crossword for “south american fellow” but I couldn’t see the wordplay. Well, because it’s the wrong answer.


  3. I managed all but 1ac and 2dn in an hour, then turned the lights out, and couldn’t sleep until those last two came to mind.

    I too nearly had aye aye, but worked out the unknown PYE DOG with the help of all the checkers. The unfamiliar ST for ‘stumped’ gave a lot of trouble at 27ac.

  4. I found this tough (it took me 62 minutes) but, unlike other contributors so far, I enjoyed it a lot and never felt for a moment that I might need to resort to aids to complete it.

    The four 3-letter words went in first to give me a foothold in each quarter and then I worked my way slowly but very tidily through the grid completing each section in turn.

    Two of the trickier words, TOQUE and DHOTI came up here recently and were subject to comment and discussion , so that helped a bit. And PYE-DOG also lodged in my brain from a previous occasion.

    I have no problem with the homophone at 2dn.

    I note the Grey/Black Print buttons on the Club page are still broken and nobody at the Times seems to give a damn. I thought the complete breakdown of the site in the early hours might have indicated maintenance to fix this but no such luck!

    Edited at 2014-04-23 06:08 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks, though that’s a different beast! I have two completely separate PC systems with separate printers of different make and have tried using Firefox, IE and Chrome to no effect. It all worked fine on Sunday. I have no printing issues other than with the Times site.
        1. Up and going on Firefox and Chrome (Mac). Obviously I can’t test IE!
          Are you using any anti-tracker software (e.g., Ghostery)? They sometimes block the Grey/Black option.

          Edited at 2014-04-23 06:39 am (UTC)

          1. I’ve not changed anything since the last day it worked properly (Sunday), and I’m running two completely separate PCs with different Windows operating systems and different security arrangements.

            The other error is that if I go via the newspaper and select Grey, the button is at least active and appears to work, displaying the puzzle in grey until Print Preview comes up and it reverts to black.

            In the Club, the Grey/Black and size buttons do not respond at all to any command.

            Edited at 2014-04-23 07:10 am (UTC)

            1. Be much easier if all the only print option were grey (as per the Groan print version). I’m sure that’s the more used of the two. At least it should be the default.
              1. Agreed. Since writing the above I have remembered an old trick that allows one to print grey via the newspaper and it still works, so at least I shall have a means of printing grey – unless they bugger that up too! It’s still no reason for the Club button not to work though and I think someone at the Times needs to get onto that and sort it out.

                If anyone’s interested: On the Times newspaper puzzles page, click Print Grey then click Cancel then click Print Grey again and proceed as normal. What a palaver!

  5. Just looking at the wordiness of some of the clues gave me a bad feeling on this and sure enough, there is much over-egging here. I hope that the QC is more enjoyable.
  6. 24′ 20″ in a wee small hours solve, an eternity on 1ac and 2d, as I decided I wasn’t going to get 2d without its first letter. 1ac eventually yielded to an alphabet soup strainer approach followed by a quick kick to the shins, as I always referred to the two pedals on a piano as loud and soft, but didn’t call the latter to mind when I needed it. Curious that it seems to have held everyone else up, too.
    SCARCITY was a bit of fun, INN a guess based on Innsbruck, which must be where the bridge is, and SCENARIST just looks made up. I quite liked TRAYFUL, though.
  7. Thought this was a beauty, with a number of unknown words that were gettable via the wordplay, which makes for a satisfying solve.

    Thank you setter, thank you blogger.

  8. 21.32. Uncomfortable with 2 (especially, as that f is toddler at least as much as E. London-speak) and 23. Some neat workings, not all of which I saw wholly on the way through. Pi-dog’s the more modern spelling I think.

    Edited at 2014-04-23 08:29 am (UTC)

  9. 28:37 … which has been about my average for a few days thanks to a combination of the dreaded lurgy and my being medicated up to the eyeballs. It’s quite fun solving while half-stoned — I keep giggling at clues which probably aren’t funny at all. Long hold-up at the end staring at a wall. I think that was prompted by SCENARIST, which is a very peculiar word.

    Otherwise, very nice puzzle. Or not. I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t be solving or commenting. Now, I must find some heavy machinery to operate before going on a long drive …

    1. 28m here too. Also being on strong medication, I can recommend alcohol (best once you’ve finished with the heavy machinery and driving).

      1. I’m pretty sure one of the packets recommended alcohol, along with the suggestion to drive and operate heavy machinery, but I couldn’t remember the sequence. Thank you. And cheers — down the hatch!
        1. Hi Sotira. Sorry to hear you’re under the weather. I can recommend a huge pasty washed down with a flagon of scrumpy – by the time you wake up your ailment will have long gone
            1. In my experience scrumpy is more effective at causing, rather than curing, illness.
  10. 19 mins so back to some kind of form after yesterday, and I enjoyed this puzzle.

    From some of the comments above it looks like it was fortunate that I saw FROZE relatively quickly, and the F checker from it certainly helped me get SOFTLY. I had the most trouble in the SW and PYE-DOG was my LOI after GUYANESE.

  11. I enjoyed this, didn’t find it difficult, only compaint is that with Vinyl, I’m not terribly keen on weird words like scenarist, storer. Though I do have a trayful of something, now and then..
    1. 21m, with all of the right-hand side going in before any of the left other than YEP. Like Andy my real problems were in the SW and my final two were PYE-DOG and DHOTI, which struck me as a particularly tricky, if perfectly fair, crossing pair.
      I didn’t mind this as much as some, but like others I wasn’t particularly keen on some of the un-wordy words – STORER, TRAYFUL, YEP – and the odd loosish definition.
  12. I’m in agreement with Galspray on this one, even if I’m mortified to have come home at nearly 2 x Gs. 64 minutes ending with dhoti, which I was pleased to get from the wordplay until I realised that only memory-loss made that one so hard. Joint CODs to SOFTLY and DEMEAN.
  13. As Anon suggests, I think 10 may need tweaking to A + BOUT (attack) + TURN (shock)
  14. Romped along in 20 minutes until ST(umped) by F-O-E 2dn and -Y- DOG. FROZE as a cockney homophone for THROWS seems a bit poor, and demeaning, to me. I can ‘ack dropping the ‘aitches, but FR for THR? And PYE DOG, a variant spelling of an Indian pariah dog, not hyphenated by WIKI? So a DNF but not upset by failing to twig these two iffy clues.
    1. Well to be fair, pye-dog *is* hyphenated by the Oxford, Collins and Chambers dictionaries, and is given as the preferred spelling in each case; so it may be better to address your complaint to Wiki…

      Edited at 2014-04-23 09:44 am (UTC)

      1. Apology, Jerry, will do. Sadly in solid form we only have the Shorter OED which doesn’t feature pye-dog or pi-dog or any variant I can find.
        1. Oh, no apology needed, this is just friendly chitcht.. I would mention that Collins and the Oxford dictionary are both available free online
    2. I reckon ‘fwoze’ would be a more accurate rendering of how Harry Redknapp for one might talk about long ones into the box.
  15. Similar to others with 1A and 2D giving most trouble

    There’s something clunky about a lot of these clues that never quite caught my imagination

    Is a “softy” a coward? Certainly not in every day language. And I suggest the setter visits the East End of London to discover just how different things are these days.

    1. Be careful what you ask for – most of us are fairly comfortable with “stage cockney” but very few, I think, with Bengali!
  16. 31 minutes with a few hold-ups but they didn’t include 1ac or 2dn. Agree with Jim about that one – Coward makes for a great surface but is hardly synonymous with softy. Nuffink wrong with F for TH in cockney diction but it is more widespread than the East End. Having grown up 20 miles east of London this to me was one of the more accurate homophones.
  17. One missing today (scenarist). Got the unknown Pye-Dog from the wordplay. FOI Lit.
    Didn’t understand Froze but this was the only word I could think of that fitted the checkers (turns out there’s another one: Frore (= very cold)).
    Topical to see Crimea in the grid but no obvious references to (today being) St George’s Day or Shakespeare’s birthday.
  18. Stopwatch wouldn’t start but looking the time I posted a comment on another site before starting to solve the Times puzzle and the time I finished the it, I would say about 7 mins.
  19. I’ve been distracted – starting a new job next week so a lot of bitty odds and ends – and it shows in my already weak ability to solve clues. Like others, pye-dog, dhoti, softy, froze did for me. Insufficient cricket knowledge gave me scenarios (out, stumped, was my guess) which held up that corner.

    Edited at 2014-04-23 12:16 pm (UTC)

  20. 17:25 which looks a decent time so I’m not going to complain about softies, storers, cockney-speak and pi-dogs.

    Trayful is fine as well. A waiter can drop a trayful of drinks and any food market will have a stall selling chicken breasts, salmon fillets or pork chops by the trayful.

    Pye-dog and scenarist unfamiliar but gettable, thanks for the parsing of chewing over – once I’d got it into my head that victory had to be V I was never going to figure that one out.

    1. Well sure, but you could stick -ful infront of almost anything and make a word of it, so it doesn’t feel to me quite like a proper word in its own right.
      Having said that I’m not sure a playful of actors would be quite right. Or a bashful of guests.
      1. I guess I didn’t make my point forcefully enough. I’ve certainly heard trayful used before in both of those contexts and it doesn’t take much Googlage to fine many examples in books. Storer I’m less in favour of.
        1. Perhaps I didn’t make my point unforcefully enough! I’m not really that bothered by it, and I’m certainly not suggesting for a minute that ‘trayful’ isn’t a word. In fact I would defend the right of a setter to use – say – ‘Trabantful’ or ‘braful’ (think of the wordplay possibilities!), whatever the dictionaries say. Actually I’d love it if they did.

          Edited at 2014-04-23 08:32 pm (UTC)

  21. DNF with 1a and 2d undone. Comments above re vocabulary and clunkiness reflect my experience too though I did enjoy quite a lot of this and was pleased to get as far as I did. (And secretly that others struggled with my failures too!)
  22. Good, chewy solve, and though I see what the complaints are getting at, I thought all was standard “crossword-ese” – admittedly, none of the elegance and brio of yesterday’s, but than that was a star. Started this in my doctor’s waiting room early this morning, and several train/bus rides later, zipped through the last 13 clues at home before supper. Altogether, I suppose just under an hour, though what this one really needed was a comfortable armchair and an uninterrupted half-hour.

    FOI YEP, LOI INN – rather in desperation, not recollecting the river but thinking there must be a connection to Innsbruck. (There is!)

    ANTIPHONY = music in church? I wonder when the setter last went to church. Since the 70s you’re lucky if you hear a well tuned guitar. Nowadays, antiphonal chant at a church service is something you have to track down and get to at unearthly hours.

    Against the grain, I thought SOFTLY quite a clever clue – had me barking up all sorts of trees without a paddle …

  23. How about changing CUDGEL, TRAYFUL and SCARCITY to JUNGLE, SNAFFLE AND SCARCEST, respectively?
    1. This is better than my thought, which was to change these three answers to JUDGED, STAFFED and SCARCEST. This has the disadvantage that you get two words which end -ed ending in the same d.
      1. Doesn’t seem that much of a disadvantage!
        I wonder how much setters bother with pangrams. I have to admit I wouldn’t notice them most of the time if they weren’t mentioned here.
    2. I had DEMEAN and NOISE replaced by JETTON and NOINT, but I suspect they would produce a blogful of complaints (including from me), so your solution looks much better, even if SCARCEST is wandering perilously close to STORER/TRAYFUL territory (or maybe that’s just me).
      1. NOINT strikes me as definite Mephisto territory. I’m curious to know what Alec’s ‘very obscure solution’ is!
        1. My obscure solution is DEMEAN to SEJEIN, an obsure word meaning to separate or divorce.
  24. Sorry to be so late. About 20 minutes for me, held up only at the end by the PYE-DOG. I saw the proper wordplay but don’t know of the animal, so it was really a stab at the wordplay and checkers which I’m surprised is correct. Regards to all.
    1. For me it was a stab at the wordplay and checkers which I wasn’t surprised was correct, perhaps because this sort of thing occurs to me so often. I sometimes think ignorance can be an advantage with these things, but I’d have thought you statesiders would be even more attuned to this than me, what with the endless cricket references. 😉
  25. A sluggish 15:21 for me. I’m not sure why I was quite so slow, since with hindsight it all looks pretty straightforward. I wasn’t helped by bunging in ABOUT-TURN first time through, but then worrying about it until I had all the crossing answers in place because I hadn’t parsed it correctly (I only twigged BOUT = “attack” and TURN = “shock” when checking through afterwards).

    Apart from SOFTY = “coward” (which doesn’t seem right at all), I thought this was a very fine puzzle with some excellent surface readings. Hard to choose a COD, but I think I’ll plump for 6dn (GET CRACKING). No objection to FROZE (or STORER or TRAYFUL).

  26. Nothing much to write about. Looked in hoping that thud_n_blunder would have posted some poor devil’s misfortune for me to chuckle over.
  27. For 6d, did anyone else see G (start going) + UTTER (say) + C (ton) + KING (A1) = GET TRUCKING? Does not quite work because “north” is then redundant, but very appropriate for A1.

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