Times 25,857 – Bring The Curtain Down

Author   dorsetjimboPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A reasonable middle of the road puzzle for my 176th blog of the daily puzzle and my swan song – 25 minutes to solve with no major hold ups. One or two interesting clue constructions where solving may well come from definition and checkers.

The fact that there are no painters, poets or obscure authors marks an evolution over the last seven years that this blog has played a major part in bringing about. I shall continue to blog Mephisto and will contribute to the discussion of the daily puzzle. With apologies to Elvis and Ludwig, I hope I haven’t bored you – the comedy is finished.

Across
1 PANIC,STATIONS – (captain isn’t so)*; this day in 1981 when President Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers;
8 MOON – two meanings;
9 NAUSEATING – N-AU-SEATING;
10 REDSTART – TRADER reversed surrounds ST=street; brightly coloured fly-catcher;
11 EVEN,SO – EVENSO(ng); why “cathederal”?;
13 COLPORTEUR – (to procure l)*; l from (manua)l; old book seller who also composed musicals, I hear?;
16 ROAD – RO(A)D; A from A(cademy); never the same after first electric traffic light switched on 5th August 1914;
17 GENE – GENE(rous);
18 STEPFATHER – STEER surrounds P-FA(i)TH;
20 BANG,UP – BAN-PUG reversed; slang for put in prison – Nelson Mandella 5th August 1962;
22 ENRICHED – END surrounds IR reversed-CHE; IR=Irish;
24 WAGON,TRAIN – WA(GO)NT-RAIN; reminds me of Ward Bond and “Dreams were not always dreamed in vain”;
26 BUTT or BATH – two meanings – with BATH apparently the “correct” answer. Poor clue;
27 CAPITAL,LETTER – fantastic=CAPITAL; landlord=LETTER;
 
Down
1 PROLEGOMENA – (a longer poem)*; posh word for prologue used by Kant in his interesting book published 1783;
2 NONES – hidden (tow)N-ONE-S(unday);
3 CENTAURUS – CENT-AU(RU)S; RU=Rugby Union; bright constellation named by Ptolemy;
4 TRUSTEE – TRUE surrounds STE(w);
5 THERE – THE-RE; offers reassurance as in “there,there”;
6 ON,THE,TROT – (hotter not)*; to me this means “sequentially” more than “busy”;
7 SIN – “son” changes heart;
12 SPACE,HEATER – S(PACE)HE-AT-(th)E-R; local, portable heater;
14 PEER,GROUP – PEER-G-OR reversed-UP;
15 REFERENCE – RE-FE(RE)NCE;
19 EYEBALL – E-YE-BALL;
21 PETIT – PET-IT; offended feeling=PET; old legal term for insignificant;
23 CABOT – CAB-OT; John who is believed to have landed in Newfoundland 1497; the Mayflower set sail from Southampton this day in 1620;
25 ARC – (m)ARC(h);

48 comments on “Times 25,857 – Bring The Curtain Down”

  1. 17:07 for me, two or three times what it should have been – and perhaps would have been if I hadn’t been feeling so darned tired, having just tackled a decidedly tricksy puzzle from 1937 (which took me well over 20 minutes, and I was already feeling pretty tired when I started that one). Fortunately I knew both PROLEGOMENA and COLPORTEUR, and I bunged in the Hebrew measuer at 26ac without a second thought.

    I take encouragement from the setter’s statement that he or she “would rather despair if the bloggers here had a disproportionate influence on the vocabulary of the Times crossword!” The literary content of the Times crosswords was part of what made them special. Without it they run the risk of becoming just another daily cryptic. By all means beef up the science, but lets keep the literary stuff going as well.

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