Times 25,797 – How’s Your Gaeilge

Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
20 minutes on blogging day so not too difficult. No poets, painters or authors but an unrecognised statistician. No obscure words but one possibly questionable homophone.

Across
1 RANCID – DI-C(N)AR all reversed; DI=cop; N from (sire)N; “off” is deinition;
5 BRAINBOX – BR-A-IN-BOX; answer=A; TV=BOX (old slang); Henry Kissenger perhapse whose birthday is today;
9 SPEARMAN – SPE-ARM-AN; S(a)P(p)E(r); Charles SPEARMAN 1863-1945 was a famous statistician – pity he didn’t warrant a mention;
10 REBUFF – RE-BUFF; RE=Religious Education; BUFF=expert; what European electorate has just done to EU status quo;
11 CALL,IN – C(hallenging)-ALL-IN;
12 ATROPINE – A-(protein)*; drug with various medical applications;
14 MACHINATIONS – MA-CHI(NATION)S; Baldrick rides again;
17 DRAG,ONES,FEET – (often greased)*; sometimes useful negotiating 14A;
20 VALENCIA – VA(LEN)C-I-A; 40 days=LEN(t); island=I; large container port on the Med and home of paella;
22 DONE,IN – D-ON-EIN; D=old penny=copper;
23 LITTER – two meanings;
25 KEEL,OVER – KEEL “over” = LEEK; the Liberal Democrat vote last Thursday;
26 SHIPMATE – (hates)* surrounds I-PM;
27 TETHER – TE(THE)R(n); Nick Clegg could be at the end of his;
 
Down
2 APPEAR – PA reversed-PEAR; a conference is a type of pear;
3 CHARLEMAGNE – C(HARLEM)A-ENG reversed; first Emperor of W Europe Charles the Great 748-814;
4 DOMINICAN – DO(MINI-CA)N; taxi=MINICA(b); cigar magnate Jose Blanco no doubt;
5 BENGALI – BEN-GAL-I; Satyendra Nath Bose perhaps after whom the boson particle is named;
6 AIRER – to some sounds like Eire;
7 NIB – B-IN all reversed; supposedly mightier than the sword;
8 OFF,ON,ONE – two meanings;
13 POINTING,OUT – and again;
15 AMENDMENT – A(MEN)D(MEN)T; “cheers”=thanks=TA; the US Second one continues to give rise to problems;
16 FREAKISH – FRE(A-KI)SH; a family losing its name=KI(n);
18 SHACKLE – S(HACK)LE(aze);
19 RIB,EYE – (b)RIBE-YE; delicious steak cut;
21 CARLA – hidden reversed (tek)CAR-LA(gelli); infamous hurricane;
24 TIP – T(hose)-I(n)-P(ower);

38 comments on “Times 25,797 – How’s Your Gaeilge”

  1. 27:01 .. this took a bit of finishing off. AMENDMENT only parsed post-solve.

    COD … RANCID for the cleverly disguised definition.

  2. At least 5ac avoided the wrapped undies! Didn’t understand OFF ON ONE. Where does it come from I wonder? Liked the anagram at 17ac.

    And … tomorrow will be my last blog on this site.

    1. Just slang for rant – so off on a personal deep felt diatribe

      Sorry to learn you are leaving us – hope you’ll still be around to comment

      1. Ah yes, now I get it!
        Many thanks.

        Just that my sub runs out and one Murdoch (the university named after Sir Walter) is refusing to pay me for about 2 days a week worth of work; while another Murdoch wants the money I consequently don’t have.

        Edited at 2014-05-27 08:33 am (UTC)

      2. Sorry to lose you McText, an inspiration to us newcomers to blogging.
        Jimbo you need Kissinger not Kissenger.
    2. I’m so sorry 🙁 That sucks, big-time!

      Edited at 2014-05-27 02:06 pm (UTC)


  3. Enjoyed it today, despite taking nearly an hour and having the momble ‘atripone’.

    Didn’t parse DOMINICAN, so thanks for that.

    loi: APPEAR

    Why so McT? Will you still be contributing?

  4. Not one of my quicker solves at 27’34”, hung up on the definition for Big Chas. I mean, former governor? What next, Genghis Khan, one-time team leader? King Arthur, chairman of the board? Not all that sure if it would have helped in the top left to have SPEARMAN defined as ‘statistician’ either. Sorry Jim (and Charles – perhaps we’ll meet in the TLS).
    Otherwise a steady enough solve, with the excellent KEEL OVER my fave of the day.
  5. 33 minutes, which was disappointing as I had thought I was easily heading for a sub-30 – all too rare an occurrence for me these days. But unfortunately I was scuppered at the 1ac/3dn intersection where I found it hard to think past ‘panda’ as the cop car that needed fitting in somehow. However I was pleased that I understood all the parsing as I solved apart from 15dn which, like sotira,I needed to return to after the main event.
  6. Easy one again today, 14 mins.

    Does absence of pointing give rise to an urgent need for repairs? My garden wall’s been like that since we moved here, 17 years ago..

    Sad news, MC..

  7. 29.00 with the last six minutes on rib-eye. (Was convinced it was cut as ignore, with the ‘eye’.) Can’t say I care for the phrase ‘off on one’. All neat enough, no blinding wit, but the surfaces work, so very acceptable in its quiet way.
  8. 15 mins. I thought this was an excellent puzzle and I’m pleased with my time because there were quite a few clues in which the definition wasn’t at all obvious and close attention to the wordplay was needed. Having said that, I agree with Z8’s quibble about CHARLEMAGNE being defined as a governor.

    As has already been mentioned, the clue for RANCID falls into the above category, as do the ones for APPEAR and my LOI, RIB-EYE.

  9. With the exception of “governor”, which sounded odd to my ears as well, a pleasantly solid and workmanlike weekday solve.
  10. Overshot my half-hour target a little, but thought it a good puzzle. My only problem is that I am now afflicted by an earworm and the rude words that a Scouse comedian put to the tune VALENCIA in a seedy, northern nightclub many years ago.
  11. 29 min: 1ac LOI – I’d been trying to do something with PANDA too, but eventually got 3dn. Governor for ‘someone who governed’ doesn’t seem too much of a stretch when we accept ‘banker’ for ‘something with banks’ without much protest.
    Thanks for parsing of 14ac – with CHINA for the country, I couldn’t see how the Greek character came in. Never heard the expression at 8dn, so it had to go in from enumeration and checkers.
  12. 11:48. Clearly on the wavelength for this one. Nice puzzle, with quite a few that required attention to wordplay mixed in with those bunged in from the definition.
  13. Same as others re Charlemagne as governor. Then persuaded myself that it just meant that he governed once upon a time. 24.48
  14. A quick solve for me (3h 30m on and off) with the first nine going in on first look (all in the NE corner). FOI Brainbox, LOI Freakish. Liked the back to front leek and the 1pm lunchtime.
    Initially had Call In as Call On before reconsidering.
  15. At first I thought this looked as easy as yesterday’s, but then things became a lot trickier and I took over forty minutes to complete it. Harder, but far more interesting than yesterday’s. The phrase at 8d was totally unfamiliar.
  16. 12:10 with 1a being the last one in and having the same query about Charlemagne as a lot of other people.
  17. Excellent and enjoyable, if not especially difficult, puzzle. RANCID with, as Sotira says, its cunningly disguised definition. was my LOI. I didn’t know the phrase OFF ON ONE in the sense of “being angry” or “throwing a wobbly” used here but once the checkers were in place there wasn’t much else the solution could be.

    I agree strongly with the complaints about 3D. “Governor” as a synonym for “emperor”, though not strictly inaccurate, seems to me absurdly loose. “Governor”, after all, could be used of anyone who is in charge of or who heads or directs or has responsibility for anything.

  18. Not sure about my time today as someone only got on my train and started talking to me mid-solve! I’d guess somewhere around 45 minutes.

    I seemed to find many red herrings in this. For the cunning schemes at 14A I was trying to fit in something to do with Machiavelli, I was trying to start 22A with DEN as one of the many German words for the and I was convinced the foot of mountain in 5D was the letter N. I do like indirection in a crossword, intended or otherwise, so for me this was a good puzzle.

  19. 20 minutes, same as yesterday though I agree with others that it was a bit chewier today. Liked RANCID and KEEL OVER and thoroughly misdirected myself for a while on 19d by thinking of pie-eye(d) for ‘cut’. In the interests of balance I must suggest that today’s literary figure might well have been Frank H Spearman, author of Whispering Smith 😉
  20. Definitely “off” on this one. Everything else (bar RIB-EYE) slotted in nicely in about 35 minutes. OFF ON ONE, for angry, not exactly a “well known phrase or saying” (to those who remember Beat the Clock), or a phrase that trips off the tongue, at least not my tongue.

    Otherwise most enjoyable, if tricky and not at all obvious.

    No great problems with “governor” = one in authority, it is a crossword after all, and as far as old titles go, HM is “Supreme Governor” of the CofE. And lovely misdirection in the clueing, had me looking of “ex” and “HE”, until the checkers blazed out the solution.

    FOI TIP, LOI OFF ON ONE. My COD goes to RIB-EYE (a) for holding me up more than somewhat, (b) because I really fancy one about now.

    Sorry you’re ceasing blogging, mctext. I hope you’ll still be around.

    Edited at 2014-05-27 08:18 pm (UTC)

  21. Steady progress, nothing particularly hard or pleasing. Like others, I have never heard the expression OFF ON ONE.
    Sorry, Londiniensis, but if your posting ends up at Pedant Central (ie here) you will hear that the Supreme Governor of the CofE is HM, rather than HRH.
    1. Good Spot. I knew I shouldn’t have had that second glass with lunch …
  22. Arrgh. Call ON instead of CALL IN, because to me that is what to visit means. OFF ON ONE utterly new to me, and I hadn’t known that a conference was a type of pear, so that was actually my LOI on a wing and a prayer. I agree that ‘former governor’ to clue CHARLEMAGNE is somewhat silly. In the same vein I suppose we can now refer to mctext as ‘one-time blogger’, about which I am made somewhat disconsolate. Best regards to you mct, I hope to see you back some time. Regards to everyone else too.
  23. Like Kevin, I called on. Lots of other definitions or words just at the edge of my usage, so I had a tough solve, and if fell into just about all the traps mentioned elsewhere above. WTS, can someone help me with ” men” = pieces? I’m still lost there.
  24. I finally got men – pieces. As I said about falling into traps and diversions…
  25. Don’t know why I was so tardy this evening, perhaps I need to revert to my usual ‘around midnight’ slot.
    Very sorry to learn that you will not be blogging mctext; all the bloggers have been inspirational to me.
    As I have said before, I solve on paper (or treeware as I must now learn to call it) and since News International hiked the weekday price by 20% I am buying the title less frequently, so revenue has undoubtedly dropped in my case. The attitude seems to be ‘force the beggars into taking out a subscription, and sucker them in by making it obligatory to pay by variable direct debit’, knowing that inertia selling may stink, but it works.
  26. 16:25 for me, not helped by feeling 22ac after a busy day!

    I kept getting the wrong end of the stick, imagining that the “country” in 14ac (MACHINATIONS) was CHINA and, even worse, somehow getting it into my head that the “holiday island” in 20ac (VALENCIA) might be BALI and wondering if BALENCIA could be an alternative spelling of VALENCIA (c.f. the Duke of Alba/Alva).

    Like others I wasn’t too keen on “governor” for CHARLEMAGNE and I’ve never come across OFF ON ONE = “angry” before. I’d obviously have enjoyed this puzzle more if I’d been feeling less tired, but I don’t think I’d have enjoyed it all that much.

  27. 9ac
    from collins
    spearman
    n, pl -men
    1. (Military) a soldier armed with a spear
  28. As a London Cab Driver I’d like to say that a Taxi is NOT a minicab!

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