Times 25769: when religion meets maths

Solving time : 15:33, putting me at the top of the Club timer, but I suspect not for long. There’s a few that I was kicking myself for not seeing straight off, so there’s some nice setter’s craft here. It seemed at the end that it’s heavy on the general knowledge, particularly the mathematical term that was unfortunately my second last in, followed by the food additive that looks vaguely familiar now, but might have popped up once or twice before.

Tonight is the first night of the five-day Moogfest, celebrating the life and inventions of Bob Moog. So as soon as I get this finished up I’m walking in to town to catch the Pet Shop Boys… I wonder if my 43-year-old outer child likes them as much as the 15-year-old brat who was at the time learning how to do the Melbourne Age cryptic crossword.

Away we go…

Across
1 COP,IOUS: definiton “many”, which I originally thought was going to be part of the wordplay
5 LEHAR: H in LEAR – a composer I know better from popping up in crosswords than from any actual compositions
9 H,ORAL: got this from wordplay, though it makes sense
10 BENIGHTED: sounds like BE KNIGHTED
11 PROP,AN,E(nergy)
12 ARCHERY: CHE in ‘ARRY
13 ANNOTATION: NOT in A,NATION
15 HART: R in HAT
18 D,ICE: two shortenings of diamonds
20 IMAGINABLE: 1,MALE containing GIN,AB
23 MANDATE: since to get MATE you would need M AND ATE
24 DURANGO: RANG in DUO – knew it more from being a make of car here
25 STERADIAN: for a while I was thinking “Is there some obscure mathematical term that is an anagram of AS WHIZZ IN?” but WHIZZ is the anagrindicator and it’s (TRAINED,AS)*
26 MEDIA: ME then AID reversed
27 SATIN: STAIN with the T and A being switched
28 G,HAST(i)LY
 
Down
1 CARTOON: O in CARTON
2 PALO ALTO: PAL then A in (LOOT)* – surprised to see this in the Times. It’s big – it’s a satellite city of San Francisco. I have only been there once, stopped there to watch the sun set when I was driving from LA to San Francisco. Stanford is there, but not sure how well known it really is.
3 (s)OMBRE
4 SINGALONG: got this from definition but now I see it’s LO(see) in SIN,GANG
5 LEGACY: EG in LACY
6 HE,T,A,ERA
7 RUDDY: R then MUDDY without the last letter of foaM
8 WHIP HAND: clearly this is the answer from the definition, but I can’t seem to make the wordplay work – it looks like W, then HID with P,AN inside but where does the other H come from? Edit: thanks to the crossword editor who confirmed in the comments that the word “husband” was omitted from the clue
14 TEMPE,RING: just realized there’s a bit of Americana going on here (a Mr. Greer offering?) – TEMPE is a valley in Arizona Edit: As noted many times in comments, TEMPE is referring to the Greek valley, of which I was unaware. I have been to Tempe, Arizona (Arizona State University is there) and I thought I remember it being in a valley just beside Phoenix. So a mild defense, but I stand corrected(ish)
16 TEETOTAL: (TO,LET,TEA)*
17 INTROMIT: M in INTROIT – INTROIT for anthem appeared here recently
19 CON,CERT
21 BONE DRY: DR in BONEY (Napoleon of the boney parts)
22 PA,PAIN: so called because it’s a pawpaw extract
23 MOSES: MOSEYS without Y
24 DONNA: ON in DNA

56 comments on “Times 25769: when religion meets maths”

  1. A lot of unknown GK in this one: STERADIAN (no good at maths; mercifully an anagram), TEMPE* and HETAERA (no good at classics), DURANGO (ditto geography; failed O-level) and PAPAIN (ditto chemistry; but an obvious bit of wordplay).

    Parsed 8dn as per George and also couldn’t find the extra H. Will be interested to hear possible solutions later on.

    Deception of the day: “mountain climber” for MOSES. Much better than “Grandma”, even if that would have played more to my actual scanty GK.

    * On edit, I include TEMPE under classics because I reckon it’s this one that’s intended:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_of_Tempe

    Edited at 2014-04-24 02:54 am (UTC)

  2. I’m one more of the soon to be swelling ranks of those puzzled by the extra H. And I was not best pleased to have two totally unknown words crossing, especially as I had no checkers; I finally decided it simply had to be PAPAIN, unknown or not. DURANGO I associate with western movies, although (or therefore) I might have thought it was in Texas. I knew HETAERA, but it took me a while to figure out the spelling. Loved the deceptive 1ac (my LOI) and 23d. Lehar: George, I’d say you’re better off.
  3. An hour for all bar the SW, then half an hour more to end with the unknown crossing pair PAPAIN and ‘stedarian’ (sic). A lot of unknowns/unfamiliars [add OMBRE and DURANGO – Bob Moog while we’re about it -:)] made this rather a slog, but the ‘mountain climber’ was for me clue of the year so far.
  4. The Vale of Tempe, George, is in Greece, between Olympus and Ossa. Orpheus and Eurydice hung out there. I assume that Tempe AZ (a city not a valley) is like Memphis TE, Utica NY, Cairo IL, etc. On edit: Oops, just now noticed McText’s addition.

    Edited at 2014-04-24 04:49 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks for the catch-up. I have it on very reliable authority that Tempe AZ is not even a city but a suburb of Phoenix.

      Can’t think of anything further from the original Tempe we both refer to!

  5. How did I manage to forget the track “Romance in Durango” from my favourite Dylan album? As penance I shall listen to it twice!
    1. One of my favourite tracks. If only Dylan had written an “Ode to Steradians”, “Can You Feel My Papain” and “Intromit City” I’d have stood some chance of completing this puzzle.
  6. 8dn is surely a mistake. ‘Quiet’ could be cluing P or SH but not PH as far as I can see.

    I knew I was in for trouble as soon as I saw the length of the clues.

    Some of it was straightforward but there were far too many unknowns for my liking – all the ones listed in mct’s first para plus PALO ALTO, HORAL and INTROMIT.

    I still don’t understand what purpose ‘characteristic’ is serving in 23.

    Edited at 2014-04-24 05:32 am (UTC)

    1. I think it’s referring to the characters/letters in the word “mate”. Cf character-based?

  7. Beaten by the SW. As others have said, way too much obscure (=unknown by me) GK today.
  8. A DNF for me. There was no way I was ever going to finish the southwest. Even if I’d come up with STERADIAN I would have thought “Nah, never a word”, which is exactly what I did think when I tried out PAPAIN.

    1. Let me expand on that, just a bit.
      How come we are suddenly 2,001 crosswords on?
      How did 8ac get past the editor? Silly mistakes are no longer the preserve of the eccentric TLS, then.
      What is a word like STERADIAN doing in a Times normal? (I did maths to A-level, and it’s still a jamais couché avec)
      Since when (and how, pray?) is “whizz” an anagram indicator?
      DURANGO?
      PAPAIN? (OK, the wordplay’s easy but still hard to believe) Apparently, even as a supplement, it’s dodgy.
      And lastly, de wossname non thingy and all that, but mountain climber = Moses?! Isaac Newton, “outdoor sleeper”? I K Brunel, “cigar smoker”?

      Edited at 2014-04-24 09:33 am (UTC)

      1. I take your points, in direction if not entirely in tone – but whizz is increasingly popular chef-speak for “put in a food processor or blender and…”
  9. 24 minutes, ending with PAPAIN and STERADIAN although the former was pencilled in early on as a likely derivative of papaya and the radian bit was obvious enough if you knew it. Thought the unchecked R and D a bit naughty though. As for the intrusive H, perhaps the setter is a cockney and says ‘han’?
    1. …then you’d ‘ave to have ‘harchery’ at 12, guv.

      Edited at 2014-04-24 09:07 am (UTC)

  10. 33.18. Really enjoyed the words in this (though SW took forever). There seems to be a word or words missing after ‘quiet’ in 8. Chinese fellow? Nice but unlikely. I think we should be told.
  11. I’m in the DNF crowd, and pleased that I knew when to stop. I think I’m happy to have learnt a new composer and a couple new words.
  12. 42 min, but with a typo missed on pre-submit check. (Also sometimes needed aids to find possibles from checkers.) SW was hardest, with MOSES LOI. I did know STERADIAN, but only realised it was an anagram afterwards – I think ‘whizz’ as an indicator refers to the use of a food-processor for quick mixing.
    I was hoping to find an explanation of the intrusive H in 8dn here.
  13. 46 mins but with one wrong guess after a nightmare in the SW. It took me way too long to see the MANDATE/MOSES crossers, and even after I got them I was still left with the 25ac/22dn crossers. I eventually decided PAPAIN had to be the answer for 22dn based on the wordplay, but under competition conditions I would have guessed “stedarian” as Ulaca did for 25ac. I then checked my Chambers and saw what the right answer should have been, but I was left feeling much like Z8 in terms of the fairness of the clue for a Times normal. I actually didn’t notice the rogue H in 8dn at the time, but now it seems obvious. All in all not a lot of fun.
  14. If many years of maths ending in the 3-year Maths Tripos at Cambridge did not help me in the least with 25ac, I would suggest like z8 that this is not a fair bit of expected GK. I do not know whether the Crossword Editor ever drops in here but I know that he does occasionally look at the Crossword Club and the oddity of 8dn has been raised there so we might get an answer eventually.
    1. I too spent 3 years at Cambridge studying maths and theoretical physics and | most certainly came across the measure of solid angle in my time there. In the late 70s/early 80s the concept of solid angle and steradians was part of the Nuffield A level physics course. That went when everything was dumbed down.
  15. An awful lot of GK that went in more in hope than confidence in the 20:17 I spent muttering at this one. D’Oh of the day goes to MOSES – worth the struggle for that clue alone.
  16. DNF, as I needed aids to get to or to confirm OMBRE, HETAERA, PAPAIN and STERADIAN, and if for the latter a Cambridge tripos (bigtone53) doesn’t cut it, my Double Maths at A-Level certainly falls short. The first two hover on the edge of reasonable GK, but for a daily crossword I cry foul at PAPAIN and STERADIAN.

    Also flunked the “characteristic” parsing of MANDATE – nice clue.

    PALO ALTO, though, should not be obscure, as it is the base, or starting point, of most of the household name IT companies.

    Also stumped by the seemingly extraneous “h” in WHIP HAND.

    COD probably MOSES.

    Edited at 2014-04-24 12:35 pm (UTC)

  17. Definitely too much GK. Not good. I too muttered a lot whilst persevering.

    Cheers
    Chris.

  18. I thought this was awful – I managed to guess/work out all the unknowns (except like others I had STEDARIAN) but it was a far from enjoyable task. LEHAR first in, MANDATE last. Agree that 8 down must be an error. Liked the mountain climber.
  19. A poor crossword in my book, a pity after Tuesday’s excellent offering. I knew a fair bit of the GK (PALO ALTO, HETAERA and STERADIAN), but I can see how difficult these clues were for those who didn’t know these words. Online solvers of the quick cryptic are greeted with a message box encouraging them to try the cryptic-if any of them have a go today, it might put them off for life. Whoever set this grid is far too knowledgeable for the job, and should consider how general this required knowledge is.
  20. Normally a Telegraph xword solver but there weren’t any at my station this morning. Shame, looks like I picked the wrong day to try the Times.
    Agree with all the remarks about unacceptable obscure words that have been made already, and have one specific question. What is the word “affectionately” doing in 21d? Isn’t it superfluous?
    1. The Times Quick will put a smile on your face.

      Odd really,I sailed through this one, admittedly missing the glitch at 8dn.

  21. I’m another in the “got defeated by the SW corner so did not finish” camp. After 35 minutes I jacked it in with 5 blanks down there as well as an incorrect ENTREMET at 17. It sounded authentically French to me.

    Too many “guesses” to make this enjoyable (Lehar, horal, Dorango, Hetaera etc). At times it was like trying to squeeze Maltesers out of a toothpaste tube.

  22. DNF today. Could not get any of the six in the SW corner.
    Thanks for explaining everything George.
  23. Somehow the word “husband” got chopped from the clue to 8dn.

    Sorry about that

    1. Thanks for dropping in, and for clearing up that query! Now about that number at the top of the page….
      1. Thanks Ed. Hadn’t noticed that the surface reading is nonsensical without the “husband” as well.

        Fifty lashes for the perpetrator and that should be the end of it.

    2. On the Club site, the Editor added

      “I agree that the vocab in this puzzle is at the limits of GK”

  24. Papain is also found in pineapples. WW2 US pilots who parachuted onto Pacific islands, and had to exist on a diet of pineapples and pawpaw found their teeth fell out, as papain digests flesh! Steradians OK after an engineering PhD but unfair for most non-science graduates, but we scientists are expected to know a lot of classics, music and literature.
  25. Thanks for the excellent blog which I have read every day for about 6 months and have finally decided to comment on!

    Today was very entertaining: I enjoyed COPIOUS, ARCHERY and SATIN but I was also completely stumped by STERADIAN – I just put it down to my hopelessness at maths, but it seems I am not alone.

    Keep up the good work.

  26. Now that the medication has worn off, I’ll mention what I forgot to mention this morning, which is that I think the clue for MANDATE is absolutely ingenious, especially that use of “Characteristic…”.
  27. And, while we’ve got the Ed on the wire, how about allowing DINNA at 24d. I know one who spells her name that way, and as the rule says, the side that isn’t out is in.
  28. Whew. About 45 minutes, but with aids at the end for the unknown math term, and, for the hell of it, to see if PAPAIN really existed. And there it was! Also, for the hell of it, I looked to see if you folks had a term WHIP WAND, since there was a ‘with’ lingering in the wordplay for 8D. No, you don’t, so I wrote in the correct answer and now we know why we were all confused. A salute to the editor for his courtesy in coming here to announce the oversight, though I join those who feel that STERADIAN is beyond the bounds of general knowledge. I was with George in wondering if ‘shwazzian’ was some kind of advanced math term. An adventurous outing. Thanks to George for the blog, and regards to all.
  29. I haven’t been able access LiveJournal for most of today. Is it just me?
    Anyway, I found this extremely hard and it took me 45 minutes. I had all but the SW done after 20m but then I didn’t solve a clue for perhaps another 15. Eventually I got SATIN (not really a difficult clue) and then after a pause the remaining clues fell quite quickly once I’d decided to bung in the unlikely-looking PAPAIN and see if that helped with the others.
    Unlike many I mostly rather enjoyed the challenge of this puzzle. There are some ridiculously obscure words of course but I don’t mind that as long as they are solvable from the wordplay. The one big exception is 25, which is unsolvable if you don’t know it. I was lucky and plumped for the right answer but it was a straight toss-up with STEDARIAN. Clues like this just shouldn’t happen.
    The other clue I really didn’t like was BENIGHTED, which doesn’t seem like a homophone at all to me. No-one else has mentioned it though so I assume I’m missing something.
    Thanks to the editor for popping in to clear up the mystery of the lost H.

    Edited at 2014-04-24 05:41 pm (UTC)

    1. James, I was unable to access this site for pretty much the whole afternoon so it wasn’t just you.
  30. This is one of those days for me where with hindsight I should have given up earlier, stumped by the SW corner and INTROMIT. I never came across STERADIAN during the three years of my maths degree.
  31. 29:46 for me, using all the time available hoping I might be able to think of something better than the implausible-sounding PAPAIN – yet another foodie word I’d never heard of. (Sigh!) I’m less than keen on the word “acquires” in this clue – or am I missing something that would justify it?

    Other parts of the SW corner gave me a hard time as well. Fortunately I knew STERADIAN (my maths degree coming in useful there) but I took simply ages to get MOSES and then agonised over MANDATE. I came to the same conclusion as mctext about “characteristic”, but I’m not too keen on it, and I’m surprised to find it in a modern crossword.

    What with the missing “husband” in 8dn, this was definitely not my favourite puzzle!

    1. Tony, I couldn’t see why “acquires” was in the clue for PAPAIN either, and it stopped it being a much easier clue to solve because it suggested some sort of insertion, and without the middle checker from STERADIAN I spent time trying to think of a two-letter word for a food-additive to put inside either PA??IN, P??AIN or PAI??N.
  32. Some very lucky guesses tonight, and I confess to checking a couple in the dictionary before entering them, which I normally avoid. Too difficult to be much fun for me.
  33. Fortunately most of the GK was familiar or at least rang a distant bell, but I was held up for an age at the end by the STERADIAN/PAPAIN crossing, which I finally entered after several alphabet run-throughs produced no other likely alternatives. I fully expected that both would be wrong, not knowing either and being concerned that I was misinterpreting the “whizz” and “acquires” parts of the wordplay.

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