Times 25,851

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
17:59, with by far the majority of that spent in the Southern Central section of the grid. I thought some of the vocabulary was a little unusual, though today’s driving tour of the Roadworks of East Anglia may just have dulled my brain. An unusual number of Zs today (well, 4 of them).

Across
1 BALLISTIC – BALL(pellet) + 1 STICK.
6 SALSA – Sons, BALSA minus Bonfire.
9 LADETTE – DuE in LATTE. I don’t think I’ve previously seen the “coffee cups” device, i.e. the word for coffee encloses something else, and I liked it. See previous blogs for discussion of whether a drink which is mostly milk can be called “coffee” – general conclusion, I think, was that it would be unduly pedantic to complain, even for a crossword forum 🙂
10 SPEAK UP – PEAK(maximum) in SUP. Increasing the volume in the way that didn’t work for Ian Duncan Smith.
11 SWEAR – Succeeded + WEAR.
12 DONIZETTI – Z(today’s mathematical variable) inside (“opening”) (TIEDINTO)*. Hands up anyone else who thought the anagram fodder followed Variable, and there was a composer called Vendittio or similar.
13 SPIRITED – as in “whisked off/spirited away”, and how one might playfully describe a drink which had been pepped up with a shot.
14 LEVI – LEVITATE.
17 FAWN – first letters in reverse order from Negotiations With American Financier; the word here is the verb “to fawn”, meaning to produce young deer.
18 ZEPPELIN – ZEPPO, (LENIN)*. I felt very dense here, only getting it after trying to justify HARPELIN or HARPILEN; though it is, of course, traditionally Zeppo’s fate only to be thought of after Groucho, Harpo and Chico (even if that still puts him ahead of Gummo in the pecking order). Perhaps the most unusual fact about the Marx Brothers is that Zeppo played a small but important part in the dropping of the atomic bomb…
21 PRIMIPARA – PRIM(proper), 1 PARA. Misdirection because the “dropped in” relates to the soldier, not the insertion of a word somewhere else. The word itself was new to me, but the definition and a passing knowledge of Latin helped me get there.
22 APPRO – APP(phone feature), (OR)rev. Appro short for “approval”, i.e. you try items “on approval” and only buy the ones you want to keep.
24 DRIBLET – (BIRD)rev. + LET(obstruction).
25 ZITHERS – ZIT(spot), HERS. That defnition “note producers” is not immediately obvious (not to me, anyway).
26 LEGGY – Left, EGGY, the picture being painted of a man spilling his breakfast egg down his tie.
27 PIE CRUSTS – (CRISP,SUET)*. Once more I didn’t help myself by trying to work out an anagram from THESE CRISP, which was something of a doomed effort, especially with the surplus letter…
 
Down
1 BOLUS – (LOB)rev. + U.S. You need to define lob as “throw up” in order not to need to reverse it twice.
2 LADIES IN WAITING – (DIGITALIANWINES)*.
3 INTERMIX – IN TERM(when lessons are held, as opposed to IN VACATION, say) + (XI)rev.
4 TRENDIER – END in TRIER.
5 CASINO – A SIN (abbreviation of the function SINE) in CO.; definition “a better place” i.e. a place where you find people betting.
6 SNEEZY – more Seven Dwarfs wordplay; last time out, we had a Happy Event, now we have his companion, who would obviously be likely to hear people saying “Bless you”.
7 LIKE THE CLAPPERS – very amusing.
8 AMPHIBIAN – 1,1 (one twice) inserted into A MPH BAN, which is one way of describing a speed restriction. Just as with the animals, an amphibian vehicle is at home on land and in water.
13 SOFT PEDAL – a very good reverse hidden word, found in girL ADEPT FOSter.
15 BEDAZZLE – trapped in the BEE are [D(note), A ZZ(buzzing sound), and Large]. “ZZ” doesn’t appear in the dictionary, of course, but it looks like the sort of noise a bee would make; although the consensus on the internet is that “ZZZ” with three Zs specifically suggests snoring, rather than buzzing.
16 SPLATTER – “splash mark” is the definition, [RE: TT ALPS]rev.
19 MISLAY – Mass, “I SLAY”.
20 LAPTOP – [POT, PAL]rev., the definition being “PC to carry around”.
23 OASIS – i.e. when you have everything changed, you have nothing in its original state, or “0 AS IS”.

32 comments on “Times 25,851”

  1. 64 minutes for this one, finishing with the two ‘noted’ clues in the SE. Quite a few that needed to be extracted from the memory mire, including APPRO, DRIBLET and PRIMIPARA. Never saw the reverse hidden, but nothing new there.

    Edited at 2014-07-29 07:59 am (UTC)

  2. ‘Primipara’ appears last to have come up five years ago on Jack’s watch, when Peter B alerted us to the possibility of ‘nullipara’ and ‘multipara’ also popping up: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/387794.html. ‘Nullipara’ duly obliged later the same year in a Saturday puzzle: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/482969.html.

    I wonder if we might expect ‘nulligravida’ (never pregnant), ‘primigravida’ and ‘multigravida’ any time soon?

    1. Thanks for giving me the opportunity of saving myself embarrassment by saying I never heard of PRIMIPARA, but five years is a long time, so what the hell. I needed aids to get it today as my last one in.

      And yes, I wasted time trying to use V in the anagram fodder at 12ac and on HARPELIN as possibly some sort of bird at 18ac.

      Mostly done in 40 minutes but add another 20 for the last few before I gave up and cheated on PRIMIPARA.

    2. Glad to see I didn’t comment on that puzzle, so I don’t need to add PRIMIPARA to the roll of shame (i.e. occasions where I have confidently announced in a blog “Never seen this word before” only for someone to point out that is exactly what I said the last time it appeared…)

      Edited at 2014-07-29 12:33 pm (UTC)

  3. Crashed and burned, largely because I was trying to use the V instead of the Z in 12ac. That made SNEEZY harder than it should have been, and I failed on PRIMIPARA anyway. Never heard the word but should have got it. I was looking for a 6-letter word for serviceman ending in IN. Also didn’t think of the Marx brothers for a very long time.

    In other words I had the same problems as the blogger, but not the ability to overcome them as easily. Well done setter and blogger.

    BTW Tim, you have a typo at 11ac.

    1. Couldn’t believe it would be a Marx brother without some indication… though of course there’s no difference between a bloke called Karl and a bloke called Zeppo. Silly me.
      Also fooled myself for a long time by confidently writing the momble PRIMOGINE (GI in ONE after PRIM), obviously being the noun for a first-born from the adjective PRIMOGENIAL. Annoying, as PARA = SOLDIER DROPPED is a bit of a chestnut.
      Rob
  4. Quite a number of Zs in the grid today and, with the X in 3dn, you know what I was expecting? A fair chaallenge I thought. And the ZEPPELIN clue was top notch.

    1dn reminded me of Malcolm Lowry’s letters (a hoot, by the way) where he uses the expression “the whole bolus”.


  5. After yesterday’s stellar performance, back to earth today with a DNF after an hour or so…

    Blanks at: PRIMAPARA (dnk), got PRIM, but wanted to shoe horn (IN)FANTRY or some such in there; LEVI; ZEPPELIN; ZITHERS; AMPHIBIAN

    SPLATTER and SOFT PEDAL without parsing, and to cap it all I had donEzItti, too!

  6. The top went in very quickly (only the fodder at 12A causing a short delay) but the southern hemisphere proved more difficult by dint of some perhaps questionable devices

    At 24A a DRIBLET is a small quantity – perhaps egg yolk in this context – so “water” is in there more for surface reading than anything else. Like Tim I’m not entirely convinced by ZITHERS or by ZZ for buzzing sound at 15D

    I thought 18A very good with “Lenin” disguising the “Marx” that was required. 25 minutes overall.

    1. Tim’s problem is: “That def[i]nition ‘note producers’ …”. Yours too? If so it’s strange. As soon as I read those two words, I knew we were after a musical instrument (plural). All seems like a perfectly good clue to me.
      1. My first thought was ‘composers’ (could be brothers or a school!) but otherwise I’m in the same camp.
  8. 26 mins. Count me as another who was initially trying to include a V in the anagram fodder for 12ac until the penny dropped. I thought the hidden reverse for 13dn was excellent, and it was only after I saw it that the final few in the SW fell, a quadrant in which I had taken much too long to see MISLAY (for ages I was under the impression that “lose mass” was the definition). BEDAZZLE was my LOI after PRIMIPARA, which I vaguely knew but needed a few checkers to sort out from the wordplay. Although 7dn was indeed amusing I smiled most when I finally saw what “needing post-breakfast wash” was leading to at 26ac. All in all an enjoyable puzzle and a good challenge, IMHO.
  9. The top half went in really quickly and so I began to get a little excited by the prospect of finishing without aids. However I then really struggled with the bottom. Disappointing because only PRIMIPARA was new vocabulary to me although unfamiliar senses for LET and POT didn’t help.

    After giving up and resorting to the blog, I was a little peeved to find that I was so close to getting a lot of them. Maybe I should have put the puzzle aside and returned later.

    Thanks very much for the blog Tim.

    Edited at 2014-07-29 11:08 am (UTC)

  10. I enjoyed this one, not least because unlike the last 3 days, I could do it at home. DNK PRIMIPARA but worked it out and LET seems only to appear now in Crosswordland although I am sure that my old blue UK passports talked about ‘without let or hindrance’.

    Thank you Tim and setter.

  11. An enjoyable 18 mins. I particularly liked the much blessed 6d and the post-breakfast eggy.
  12. Best part of an hour, and with PRIMIMAMA at 21A. I’d parsed this as PRIM with A for one dropping in IMAM as the serviceman, as in a religious service.

    I had a rare foray into the Guardian yesterday where SNEEZY was also to be found. This is not the first time that I’ve found an answer in common with the Guardian within a couple of days which suggests more than coincidence, and I’m curious as to why. Is there a setters’ forum somewhere?

    1. After OCTONAUT yesterday, I also had PRIMIMAMA on exactly the same reasoning. Great minds fail alike.
    2. If there is a setters’ forum I would expect it to be in the back room of a moderately disreputable pub; I doubt they’d let the likes of us in.
      1. No wonder I’ve never seen them. I only frequent completely disreputable pubs.
  13. 16:59. Lovely stuff. Do I detect the hand of Anax at work here?

    Nice to see the singing Marx Bro here even though he’s missing from my avatar.

    I had Sneezy in before the composer so didn’t consider that a V was needed in the latter.

    Primipara, Donizetti and fawn as a verb unknown, amphibian not fully parsed so thanks. LOI spirited, COD leggy for the eggy bit.

  14. 25:32 .. cracking puzzle. Definitely no ZZZZs while solving.

    No quibbles about anything here but a big thank you for LIKE THE CLAPPERS, the post-breakfast wash and the ZEPPELIN.

  16. About 30 minutes, ending with unparsed SPLATTER and BEDAZZLE from definitions only. I didn’t take the time to sift through the thick wordplay for those. But I was entertained by the plethora of Z’s included today, a rarity that I don’t recall meeting before. Didn’t know LIKE THE CLAPPERS, and needed a couple of checkers to emerge to identify the correct applause. ZEPPELIN and LEGGY get my COD vote today. Regards.
  17. Difficult day for me, still feeling the effects of a malt-soaked weekend at the Sevens in Glasgow. Much respect to setter for the creativity of PIE CRUSTS, which may have something to do with the haggis version which went down at 12.30 on Sunday night. The Pot Still, definitely off the scale of disreputability…
  18. 12:06 here for a delightful puzzle. Like others, I was very taken with 26ac (LEGGY) and 6dn (SNEEZY). And like you (and others) I tried to think of a composer starting with V for 12ac (DONIZETTI) – but fortunately gave up fairly quickly.

    No problem with 21ac (PRIMIPARA), as my wife used to be a health visitor – so I was used to talk of “elderly primips”, which I think used to be 28 or over in Ealing, but I note that Chambers (2011) defines “elderly prim” (short for “primigravida”) as “one of 25 and over”.

  19. I was perfectly confident about PRIMIMARE [marine – in] and convinced of HARPELIN, so found it rather difficult to finish.
    1. If I had thought of PRIMIMARE I would have entered it with complete confidence.
  20. 17.23 in a wakeful middle of the night solve. I knew PRIMIGRAVIDA (though I’d have spelt it with a middle A) because we was one, and only got the PARA (nasty – like others I was looking for a chapla(IN) or mar(IN)e to complete the wordplay) once everything else was in.
    Couldn’t make the leap from whisked to SPIRITED, so that went on only with the addition of brandy.
    Liked EGGY because it had a rather old school (prep school?) flavour to it. I hardly ever wear a tie at brekkers.
    ZEPPELIN a lucky guess given crossers. The Marx charade gets me every time.
  21. Only came across primipara today when looking for __I_I___ possibilities for ‘spirited’.

    As a holidays-only Times crossword attempter I’m pleased to answer 5 or 6 clues, following that up with some use of a crossword solver to find possible matches.

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