Times 25784 – Now when will that qualifying puzzle appear?

Solving time: 40 minutes, somewhat interrupted

Music: None, The Player’s on TV due to rain delay

If you are an experienced solver, this puzzle will be right up your alley – you’re the kind of Pavlov’s dog that sees ‘former police force’ and barks out ‘R.U.C’. If you are just a beginner, however, it may not be so easy.

I made good speed for most of the puzzle, but then was distracted when Kaymer double-bogied the 15th and my atention to the puzzle started to waver. I had only a few left by then, but hesitated to put ‘offprint’ in for 1 down because I was sure that 14 was a ‘state’ starting with ‘San’, which of course it is not.

Across
1 OXLIP, O(XLI)P. Careless solvers (like me!) will put in ‘tulip’ from the definition and try to make the cryptic fit.
4 DOMINICAN, DOMINI[e] + CAN, I needed the cryptic for this one.
9 FORESIGHT, double definition, just banged in by me, since I didn’t have a clue about ‘Bisley contestant’. Research reveals that Bisley is the home of shooting contests, which require a rifle with a sight at the front.
10 MANIC, MAN + I.C., a refugee from the Quickie.
11 RELATE, LE backwards in RATE, not terribly difficult either.
12 QUIETUDE, QUI + ETUDE, and not an anagram of ‘musical’ + ‘something’ at all.
14 NON-RESIDENCE, Anagram of ONE [feature]D IN SCREEN, which takes a bit of working-out.
17 CARICATURIST, CARI[o]CA + T[o]URIST. I didn’t know the Brazilian dance, but the answer should be obvious from the second half.
20 IMPERIAL, I(MP)E + LAIR backwards, which I entered quickly from the literal.
21 ACTIVE, ACT I + V[ery] E[nglish]. The grammatical voices are active, passive, and in classical Greek, middle.
23 ADIEU, A + DIE + U, an &lit clue.
24 INSTIGATE, IN[v[ery]e[asy]STIGATE, a letter-removal clue, and a good one with a smooth surface.
25 ABANDONED, A(BAND ONE)D. Band Two is hot on their heels, I suppose.
25 GOTHA, GOT + H + A, best known in the UK through Prince Albert’s title.
 
Down
1 OFFPRINT, OFF + P[roportional] R[epresentation] + IN T. While the track announcer shouts “they’re off”, the word ‘off’ is not a very accurate synonym for ‘start’.
2 LORDLING, LO + RD + LING, a compendium of cryptic cliches.
3 PASS THE HAT ROUND, double definition, and not a very cryptic one.
4 DIGS, double definition, a much better one where there are a lot of way to go wrong, paticularly with ‘turns up’.
5 METHUSELAH, ME + THUS + HALE upside down.
6 NUMBER CRUNCHING, NUMBER ‘superior to’ CRUNCHING in different senses. One hopes that ‘dental work’ refers to biting into something hard, and not the actual work of a dentist.
7 CONCUR, CON + R.U.C. upside down.
8 NICKER, NIC(K)ER, a bit of a struggle since I only vaguely knew the word. This is definitely different from the ‘nicker’ you find will in Beowulf and such.
13 VISITATION, VISI(TATI)ON, another one where you have to be a hardened solver in order to automatically substitute ‘Tati’ for ‘film director’.
15 VIGILANT, VI[r]GIL + A NT.
16 ET CETERA, [b]ET(CE)TER + A. About 99% of solvers will put this in from the definition and enumeration, and move on.
18 CICADA, CI(C[orps](A)D[iplomatique])A. Once again, few will trouble with the cryptic.
19 OPTIMA, hidden backwards in [Coldtr]AM IT PO[stulates], and only up in the actual entry into the grid.
22 USED, U.S. ED, another one from the Quickie.

60 comments on “Times 25784 – Now when will that qualifying puzzle appear?”

  1. As someone commented on the forum, this may be the easiest cryptic in years; and I blew it, typing in ‘nickel’ reflexively even though I’d solved it correctly. I put in lots of these on checkers and def, or (as Vinyl suggests) enumeration and def at 16d. GOTHA also shows up in the Almanac de Gotha, the guide to the European nobility, corresponding to Burke’s is it? Peerage. And carioca refers not only to the dance but to any resident of Rio.
  2. I’m not at home and don’t have my iPod with me.

    Not too difficult; but more so than some are claiming. Struggled for the last (VISITATION) forgetting that old chestnut TATI. And there’s quite a few words that fit the pattern, DIVINATION being the most likely other candidate.

  3. I must be channelling my Monday compadre, as it was same time, same experience.

    Of course, I woudl have been sub-10 with Kevin had I not misspelt 17 as ‘caracaturist’ and bunged in ‘tulip’ at 1a when I had **l*p.

    1. I also tossed in ‘tulip’, and was quite happy with it for an unjustifiably long time.
  4. Yes, I careslessly had DIVINATION at 13dn . Having no knowledge of the rituals of the church, to me VISITATION means an evening with Jacob Marley and friends.

    Edited at 2014-05-12 04:29 am (UTC)

  5. Was just patting myself on the back for having wrestled this beast into submission when I saw the first comments here and on the Club forum.

    Oh well, guess I’m just getting dumber.

    Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter, thanks blogger.

  6. Vinyl, I think the expression “from the off” helps to justify this synonym?
  7. 13:17 .. we seem to be getting a run of really nice Monday puzzles.

    There’s no way this is in the easiest category – I could see a newish solver labouring for hours over 1a alone – but if you’ve been doing these long enough the wordplay was all crystal clear, which makes it a great puzzle for warming up the solving muscles.

    COD … INSTIGATE

    The Great Cornish House Hunt (coming to BBC daytime television soon) is now over and I will soon have a fixed abode down in deepest Cornwall. It was quite a trial finding a suitable place, and we’re only renting! Damn all those fancy second home owners with their fancy London ways…

  8. I thought I was heading for a sub-30 minute but the clues around the 13/24 intersection combined to thwart my ambitions. I also lost time on 8dn considering ‘nicker’ which sounds singular when the clue appears to demand a plural, however I then realised I have never heard the expression ‘nickers’ used as a slang term for money so it was okay.

    More time was lost considering NON-RESIDENCY at 14 which would have fitted the definition so I needed to be sure of the wordplay before moving on.

    Didn’t know OFFPRINT, nor FORESIGHT as part of a gun though I knew ‘sight’ and the Bisley reference so it seemed a safe bet.

    I enjoyed CARIOCA which reminded me of the song from the 1934 film ‘Flying Down To Rio’ which saw the birth of the Fred & Ginger era at RKO studios.

    Edited at 2014-05-12 05:56 am (UTC)


  9. About 30 mins, so on the easy side for me too today. Same unknowns at Keriothe above, and count me amongst those who chucked in tulip and divination before checkers proved otherwise. Couldn’t parse INSTIGATE, so thanks for that.
  10. 12.43, after struggling at the end to be sure of visitation. I suppose “inspiring” is breathing [Tati] in – ? First sub-15 for centuries.
  11. 19m. I seem to have found this more difficult than most. There was a lot in here I didn’t know (DOMINIE, CARIOCA, IMPERIAL, GOTHA, OFFPRINT, VISITATION) which I thought gave it rather an old-fashioned feel. I spent ages at the end on the 1s. I had dismissed the possibility that XLI could possibly contribute to such a short word early on, and then wanted it to be TULIP even after I’d taken it out.
    1. Glad you jogged my memory. I knew this only through Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering, in which the Dominie plays quite a major role.

      Lots to trip and hold up the less experienced solver, especially of the scientific persuasion, so definitely not easy per se.

  12. I didn’t find this easy at all. As mentioned above, some unusual (and to me unfamiliar) vocab (DOMINIE, CARIOCA, IMPERIAL, GOTHA, OFFPRINT) and tempting incorrect answers (tulip, divination) meant it was no cakewalk.
  13. Not a hard one but not a quick one either, just a steady grind. Looks like I missed out on problems but OXLIP being FYI helped.
  14. 17 min: I found top half quite easy, but 14 and 17 were recalcitrant, so hopes of a personal best faded.
    23ac LOI – I agree this was a really crafty clue.
  15. 11 minutes, which followed a pattern I’ve noticed increasingly in recent times: the top half goes in smoothly enough, right down to CARICATURIST in this case, then when adrenaline hits (?) at the possibility of a really stellar time, an intermission intrudes of blankly staring at the blank lower half of the grid.
    It happens often enough that it can’t just be that the lower clues are harder, and may explain why I’m never going to do better than 26th place at the Championship. I’d value tips from Magoo and/or Jason!
    Personal character flaws aside, this was indeed an easy one – if you know the tricks of the trade or have mastered the art of instinctively knowing when something is right. I only worked out how good a clue CoD INSTIGATE is post solve. My loss, I think.
    IMPERIAL caused the biggest hold up: I was expecting the less obvious use of beard in its confrontational sense (“beard the lion in his den”) and IMPORTUNE so nearly fitted the crossers I had.
    VISITATION is a fine example of the ecclesiastical tendency never to use 2 syllables when 4 will do: what’s wrong with “visit”? For those of an eclectic frame of mind, the Feast of the Visitation (Mary to Elizabeth) is on July 2nd. Heaven knows how such dates are worked out with such precision.
    1. Another “divination” here which very nearly slipped through really lousing up my week. Luckily 14.30.

      Z, sorry to be a pest, can you interpret PB’s comment on the Forum re TLS 1024 for me? It’s driving me slightly nuts.

      1. Um, no! And ditto. The nearest I can get is that the next TLS may be delayed by internal issues, the following (not this?) Monday will see an explosion of TLS’s. If that’s right, it will confirm for me that I could have been at Bletchley Park.

        Edited at 2014-05-12 09:59 am (UTC)

      2. Perhaps PB meant that they have a delay in sorting out winners….the recent announcement refers to 1019!
        1. That’s possible, though I wouldn’t expect to be amongst the winners. I’ve been “entering” the TLS online for years, and only recently discovered that you can’t do that. Sadly, I’ve therefore never been “on time” even for PB!
    2. I think the reason the top half of the grid so often goes in more quickly than the bottom half is that, for most words in the top half, the first letter is checked, whereas this isn’t true of the bottom half. Checkers for the beginning of a word almost always seem to be more useful than those for the end.
  16. I too put in TULIP without being entirely happy, and had to resort to crosswordsolver.org to find 1 dn from **F*R*N* (9 possibles) before amending it to the delightful OXLIP, of course it’s oxlip. Otherwise a medium difficulty Monday jobbie, 30 minutes of joy.
    1. Unspammed. Pip, I think it was the asterisks that flagged this up as suspicious so you may like to consider using ? for unknowns if the need arises in future.

      Regards

      j

      1. My asterisks caused no problem. Perhaps Pip is discerned to be of the pro-Kiev faction while I’ve been ascribed a place under hammer-and-sicklers!
  17. 19 mins. You can count me as another who didn’t find it that straightforward. In the top half OFFPRINT went in from the wordplay, DOMINICAN from the definition (dominie unknown or forgotten), and CARICATURIST from the definition (carioca unknown). In the bottom half it took me ages to see IMPERIAL, VISITATION, VIGILANT and INSTIGATE (my LOI).
  18. 25m here for a steady sole. My COD to INSTIGATE but some pleasant clues here. Thanks for blog – needed it for the Brazilian especially.
  19. As others I found the difficulty level rather odd: the clues were nicely done, and quite easy, but coupled with a tricky or vaguely recondite entry, it can still make for a harder solve. I did enjoy this one though, coming in with a time around 25 minutes.

    Many thanks all.
    Chris.

  20. An odd mix – part straightforward and part requiring muttering and Tippex – finished in 10:16
  21. Thought I was on for a quick time when I had all but three done in 15 minutes, but then took nearly as long again to come up with OFFPRINT, NON RESIDENCE and VISITATION. Fortunately my guess for the latter was correct as I couldn’t parse it and had I thought of DIVINATION I might have been torn between the two.
  22. Found this one an excellent learning experience. Managed to get all but six of the blighters out, and those where I came up short seem to have been regarded as tricky by my more learned friends as well.

    Particularly pleased to have learned of the IMPERIAL beard. As a man who has staked money on whether Hashim Amla, Mohammad Yusuf or Moeen Ali has the largest beard in international cricket over the last 5 years (the bets ultimately had to be voided as there was no feasible method of validation – but I reckon its Ali) I must confess to an unhealthy fascination with the things. This was a new one to me.

    OXLIP tested my Roman numerals beyond breaking point (thought 41 was XXXXI which – even for the Times – seemed unfeasible as part of a solution). OFFPRINT was simply unknown (even with 3 of the 4 checkers). Etc.

    COD for me was 6 down. Raised a laugh (which generally indicates my COD).

    Edited at 2014-05-12 12:23 pm (UTC)

    1. Despite having recently joined the ranks of the bearded myself I’d never heard of the Imperial beard either. Having since Googled it I can safely say it’s not a look I will be adopting!
      1. If I may say, I think you have chosen wisely sir.

        However, the “partial imperial” as depicted on google search (I hesitate to insert link as it may be spammed) is a potentially impressive offering for those with an eccentric bent (and, it would appear, a fair amount of time on their hands to keep the thing in order). Anyway, enjoy the beard you have!

  23. Enjoyed this one, got 1a and 1d straightaway, first time ever I think. Rest went in fine, even managed to parse the whole lot.

    Nairobi Wallah

  24. A rather disappointing 23:04.

    At 1a I considered Roman numerals for 41, decided quite rightly that XXXXIX wouldn’t quite fit and went for tulip once the L and P were there. That meant I really struggled at the end with offprint and non-residence where I, too, thought it had to be a San- state.

    Same unknowns as others, nothing else to add really except that I got my letter from David Levy on Friday and whilst he doesn’t want me to manage Spurs next season he has requested the pleasure of my company at the Tower Hotel in October.

    1. You must be in the minority of people not linked with the Spurs manager’s job!
      1. I liked Tim Sherwood’s magnificent gesture in giving up his seat to a fan who is always favouring him with free advice from the stand. And still more his instant response on whether said fan would be considered for the Spurs post: “He’s got no chance – he’s British!” Tim should keep the job on that ground alone.
    2. The Tower Hotel? The last few have been at the (presumably free-to-hire) News International building so maybe the competition’s budget has been increased – fingers crossed for some Jaffa Cakes.
    3. I haven’t heard anything, but I see now that they haven’t paid in my cheque either. I do remember hesitating before posting my entry at a rather overgrown and forlorn-looking postbox in deepest Cornwall…
      1. The Championship helpline is 02077825000 – I’m sure they would be willing to let you know if your entry ever arrived.
      2. They haven’t paid my cheque in either so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
        1. Mine turned up this morning. Actually I suspect it turned up last week but has been buried under a pile of miscellaneous correspondence/homework/newspapers/kitchen utensils/toast/cats ever since.
  25. This was a write-in for me but only thanks to Barbara Pym. In some of her novels of the academic world, professors and wannabes circulate offprints of their latest scholarly musings to each other as a sort of male dominance display thing. It was gettable from the parsing but far from obvious if you didn’t “happen to know”.
    1. Crikey! Thanks for the heads up. Male dominance displays are totally counter-cultural in my operation – I clearly need to spend more time hanging round the photocopier checking out what’s really happening!
    2. I didn’t realise OFF-PRINT was so unusual…..when I practised I was always asking for off-prints of various journal articles ; this was before computer access became widely available , of course. It was , also , nothing to do with ” male dominance ” , Olivia but improving my knowledge!!!

      Edited at 2014-05-12 02:11 pm (UTC)

      1. I found a whole bunch of offprints of an article successfully submitted to the Journal of Pragmatics in the last century while packing stuff up for our temporary move the other day. If only my mother had accepted more than the ten she finally agreed to take…..
      2. No doubt you noticed, Barracuda, that Magoo’s time today was 3.45. If these things weren’t fun to do by themselves we’d all just take our bats and balls and go home.
        1. If it wasn’t for a counselling site like this i think we’d all feel totally inferior and paranoid.
    3. The days of the offprint are pretty much over, now that the pdf is available. It used to be standard practice for an author of a paper in a learned journal to get, say 25 copies free, so one could trade them, like baseball cards, with one’s friends.
  26. On my letter the helpline is given as 07717 220816. David’s email address is davidlevylondon “at” yahoo.com
  27. Done in about 25 minutes, and I didn’t think it fell in the too easy category. LOI was OFFPRINT. Isn’t XLI standard Roman enumeration for 41? I’ve only rarely seen a lineup of four X’s. Had to claw through some UKisms (nicker, Bisley) to get through, and while I saw DIVINATION I held off until I could find a way to get the director in there. Regards.
  28. Whether it was wavelength, or luck, or whatever, this one was write-ins (nearly) all the way, and 17 clues fell on my 10 minute ride into Victoria, the remaining 9 between checking a friend into a clinic and waiting for the first consultation – the whole thing took about 20 minutes, and this on a day when I needed amusement for longer. FOI OXLIP, the last three, which did hold me up, NON-RESIDENCE, VISITATION and INSTIGATE.
  29. 7:30 for me. I thought I might be heading for a clean sweep, or at least a decent time, as the top half went in very briskly. However, the bottom half wrecked my chances, with 13dn (VISITATION) and 17ac (CARICATURIST) – my L2I – doing the damage.

    In my case, the explanation can be summed up in one word: vocalophobia.

  30. Well, thirty minutes for me. The last ten of those were spent trying to convince myself that “ruminant” or “jubilant” had some obscure sense meaning “alert”, until I realised I’d mis-typed 17ac as “caricaturust”.

    “IMPERIAL” stumped me for a while as well, and I spent some time trying to parse the clue with “beard” in its verbal sense (meaning “confront”). Still, got there in the end.

    These last days have seen me in foreign parts, in both the geographical and anatomical senses of the word, hence my absence. Sadly, someone has figured out that I can do less damage back home, so it’s back to the land of rain and expensive drinks.

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