Times 25,866: I Favour That Remark

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A whisker over half an hour for me to finish this ostensibly straightforward (but inwardly quite devious) puzzle. The southeast corner fell quickly, followed by the northeast, then the southwest, and then finally it was the top left quadrant that gave me the most pause; 1A being probably the most difficult piece of vocabulary, at least to a non-botanical type, and 1D not being one of the quickest synonyms of “favour” to spring to mind. I also spent a while on the fool’s errand of trying to make a word meaning “fail to understand” out of (H COPY NAME*), chance would be a fine thing!

20A first one in, the aforementioned 3D the last to fall. Slightly difficult for me to find something I’d enthusiastically declare COTD today: this was a puzzle with lots of very basic definitions (“capital”, “river”, “sport”, et al), and not much in the way of jokes and puns. I did nod my head approvingly at the cluing technique several times, e.g. 6D and 17D with their very clever requirements in the “lift and separate” department. So not my personal favourite type of puzzle, but still with much to admire about it. I’ll take that on a bleary Friday morning.

Across
1 RACEME – cluster: RACE [competition] + ME [first person]
4 SLAPDASH – careless: SH [be quiet] “about” SAD PAL [inadequate comrade] “turning”
10 SPLASH OUT – be extravagant: ALPS [range] “going back” + SHOUT [round]
11 DECOR – “interior designer’s creation”: DEC [month] + OR [gold]
12 MARSHAL – arrange: MARS [damage] + HAL{t} [stop – t{ime}]
13 TOASTIE – snack: TOE [end] “involving” ASTI [wine]
14 LIT UP – drunk: LiT [settled] + antonym of down
15 ELDRITCH – weird: ELD{e}R [influential figure – e{cstasy}] + ITCH [desire]
18 PLANKTON – “drifting masses”: PLANK [element of policy] + TON [weight]
20 LUCRE – money: C [clubs] in LURE [draw]
23 LIMPOPO – river: POP [sound of explosion] in LIMO [car]
25 REGULAR – routine: REAR [stern] “restricting” LUG [pull] “back”
26 CLOSE – double def
27 IRASCIBLE – bilious: AS [when] in (CRIB LIE*) [“awkwardly”]
28 SANTIAGO – capital: ANTI [not in favour of] “entering” SAG [slump] + O [zero]
29 FLEECE – rob: FLEE [run away from] + CE [church]

Down
1 RESEMBLE – favour: R [king] + E{n}SEMBLE [group – n{ew}]
2 CULPRIT – offender: PRI [RIP* “wildly”] “let into” CULT [system of devotion]
3 MISSHAPEN – distorted: MISS [fail to understand] + H APE [hard copy] + N [name]
5 LATITUDINARIAN – far from dogmatic: TU DIN [trade union racket] + ARIA [song] in LATIN [language]
6 PODIA – stands: {u}P {t}O {a}D{m}I{r}A{l} “dismissing odd characters”
7 ASCETIC – one avoiding indulgence: (CASE IT*) “spoilt” + C [chapter]
8 HURLEY – sport: URL [web address] in HEY [call for attention]
9 SOUL-DESTROYING – monotonous: (STYLE RUINS GOOD*) “broadcast”
16 ILLOGICAL – lacking sense: O GI [old soldier] in ILL CA L [trouble about line]
17 REPRIEVE – spare: REP [agent] + {g}RIEVE [upset “with leader going”]
19 LAMPOON – ridicule: LOON [fool] “to accept” AMP [quantity of current]
21 CALIBRE – bore: CARE [mind] “absorbing” BIL{l} [account “mostly”] “written up”
22 SLACKS – casual attire: S [head of “state”] + LACKS [does not have]
24 OBELI – daggers: “belonging to” {m}OB ELI{minated}

58 comments on “Times 25,866: I Favour That Remark”

  1. DNKOHF ELDRITCH, RACEME and LIMPOPO, but they were clearly clued.

    Always thought the HURLEY was the stick, but I see it’s also an alternative name for the sport, so nothing for the antilatitudinarians to get upset about as far as I can see.

    Thanks blogger and setter.

    1. LIMPOPO got a bit of publicity from Rudyard Kipling and his “great grey-green greasy Limpopo river”.
      1. I understand from “White Mischief” as the camera pans..
        “Have you anything of Binky recently?”
        “Old Binky? Last time I heard anything go Binky he was living halfway up the Limpopo up a tree with a Gorilla?”
        “Really? Male or female?”
        “Oh female Gorilla. Nothing queer about Binky.”

        Andrew Eldritch remains a rock god, touring style only.

    2. Despite living as I do in the heart of GAA country, I have never heard anyone call the sport ‘hurley’. Round here the sport is hurling and the stick, as you say, is a hurley. ‘Stick web address in call for attention’ would have been a better clue IMO.
  2. 20’57” and much enjoyed, even if there weren’t many laughs along the way. It helped that I was able to get going in the NW after SPLASH OUT, and there were clues which really encouraged you to use the wordplay to suss out the less familiar words: LATITUDINARIAN being a particular case in point. It fell in the discovery sequence ARIA, TU, DIN, ah yes, LATIN.
    Liked the well-disguised definitions highlighted by our blogger today: I’d add “monotonous style” and “stern routine” to those examples.
    Fine, clear blog style again from Verlaine: many thanks.

    Edited at 2014-08-15 07:47 am (UTC)

  3. Darn fine puzzle. And blog. Good to see the curly brackets in use again for deletions — much easier to read than strike-throughs.

    Held up at the end with REPRIEVE. Took me a while to find a suitable insert for {?}RIEVE. And the “upset” bit was a good herring. So COD to that!

  4. 24.45. A wry and enjoyable offering, not 9. I think in 14 lit may go better as a synonym.

    Edited at 2014-08-15 08:23 am (UTC)

  5. Thanks to Verlaine for the excellent blog of an enjoyable crossword (thank you setter). I had a discussion with a setter a couple of weeks ago about how the great grey green greasy Limpopo isn’t mentioned enough these days and here it is again.

    The NE corner held me up the most and the whole thing took me 18 mins.

  6. Relieved I’m not alone in taking a little over the hour on this one (65 minutes actually).

    After a promising start in the NE and SW I ran into trouble and was stuck for probably the best part of 10 minutes without entering anything more. I was on the verge of kick-starting by looking something up but was glad that I stuck with it and slowly but surely it all came together. On a blogging Friday I suspect I would have panicked and given in.

    Most satisfying clues to solve were LATITUDINARIAN and ELDRITCH (my LOI), a word I first learnt at school where we had a a teacher of that name.

    1. For young rascals of a certain age (my age) there was a Goth band called “The Sisters of Mercy” with a lead singer styling himself as Andrew Eldritch. An evocative word indeed…
      1. Funny, I watched The World’s End only last night. The main (Simon Pegg) character is a wannabe Andrew Eldritch and has a Sisters of Mercy tattoo on his chest.
      2. I confess this is only way I know the word outside of Times crosswords and a reference to an eldritch house in a lyric from The Fall
          1. Another good source of words like “eldritch” is the works of that interesting man HP Lovecraft…
  7. Thanks CS. I will keep an eye open for Fever-trees next.

    Some went in unparsed so thanks also to verlaine and to the setter for an enjoyable workout.

  8. Thanks to V for parsing SPLASH OUT, which I ought to have got, as ‘shout’ for treat was a favourite of my Kiwi mother’s. The 1s alone took me more than a quarter of an hour. 46 minutes.

    Who is that fellow with the moustache that feeds into his scarf?

      1. ‘Shout’ as a noun ‘It’s my shout’ is pretty widespeard, I reckon, but my mum’s use, which is related and should have ‘triggered my synapses’ here, was of the verb, ‘I’ll shout you this lunch’.
        1. Common usage down here. As in “he wouldn’t shout if you stood on his foot”, which unfortunately applies to several of my work colleagues.
    3. Mm, I thought of SPLASH OUT as a possibility early on, but couldn’t parse it properly almost until the very end. Once I saw those ALPS it was obviously the right answer and the second part became clear, but it didn’t come quickly at all…
  9. Nice puzzle which took 18 minutes; unusually for a Friday toughie, I didn’t need enlightenment from the blog, as most of the difficulty came not from obscure vocabulary or wordplay but from having to pin down the definition in the first place.
  10. 28 mins and definitely the trickiest of the week for me. I agree that this puzzle didn’t contain a lot of humour, but it was very well constructed and an enjoyable challenge. It took a while to see some of the definitions and I had to really pay attention to the wordplay in several of the clues. I actually had the most trouble in the SE and finished with CALIBRE, REGULAR and REPRIEVE in that order.
  11. 38 minutes, FOI RACEME, LOI ELDRITCH, nothing particularly road-blocking but many excellent clues that needed serious thought. If it took CrypticSue 18 minutes I feel quite good about my time. Wasn’t sure about “resemble = favour” but could see how it parsed, likewise grieve for a synonym of upset, but otherwise a fine challenge. And good indeed to have given the great grey green greasy one an airing.
  12. Did Bunthorne’s penultimate puzzle for the Guardian recently and enjoyed it a great deal. Howver, one answer (CYNIC, I reckon) puzzles me. Any help would be much appreciated (though I think I may be able to see part of the parsing):

    ‘Fancy name I see, but no supporter of Diogenes’ (5)

      1. Thanks, G – and others. Indeed, I had the parsing but not the reasoning as per Chambers. I couldn’t imagine Bunthorpe using SMS-speak but couldn’t get beyond that.
    2. I’m sure you’re right, as you don’t normally have to look further than the name Diogenes for the word “cynic” to be far behind. So, “supporter” must be FAN, take that away from FANCY to get the CY, N=name, and then…hmmm, even in the Guardian, can you really clue IC as “I see” without indicating the homophone? It would seem so…
      1. There is no homophone indicator required because “see” is the letter C per the third definition in my Chambers, and “i” is simply “i” repeated.
      2. ‘See’ is not a homophone in this case. It’s in Chambers, along with (for instance) zed, tee, es…
        Edit: but Andy was quicker!

        Edited at 2014-08-15 09:37 am (UTC)

  13. A very enjoyable wrestle which I was surprised to see I had completed in 17 minutes. When the actual time differs from the perceived time it’s usually the other way round for me. Good puzzle and blog to end the week so thanks both, or each as Marlene used to say.
  14. 23m. Very enjoyable puzzle, as others have noted.
    RACEME teamed up with BANJAX to, er, BANJAX me in the Championship a couple of years ago, so I remembered that one. I didn’t know ELDRITCH or HURLEY, but both were clear from the wordplay.
    I must have known as a child that the LIMPOPO was great, grey, green and greasy, but I had forgotten, and to me Fever Tree is a brand of tonic water these days, which is all mildly depressing. I wonder if I could persuade a child or two to let me read them the Just So Stories instead of Pirates Love Underpants, or whatever this week’s preferred literature is.
    I didn’t know that RESEMBLE could mean ‘favour’. I see it’s in Chambers but can anyone put it in a sentence?
        1. As above, it is fairly common to use it when comparing the looks of a child to his/her parents. “She favours her mother.” For example
          1. As I said, it’s not remotely common in my experience! No complaints, though: the wordplay was clear for those of us who didn’t know this usage.
            1. It’s quite common in Wigan slang, pronounced fivvers. As in, “ee what’s she done with ‘er ‘air? Fivvers ‘ens a*se in cramp!”
    2. Pedants corner. The Limpopo was not grey and green but grey-green as in great, grey-green and greasy
          1. Just kidding: I have no-one to blame but myself. I had to google it, and in the text I found there was clearly a hyphen.
            Incidentally for those interested in language there is a very interesting article by Steven Pinker on grammar ‘rules’ in the Guardian today. I’d provide a link, but it will just be spammed, and Google will find it easily enough I’m sure.
            1. Great article. I came cross this story recently, hopefully not here (anno domini and all that)

              Stanley Hauerwas was at Harvard to deliver a lecture and, being there early and still needing to do some preparation, he set out to find the library. Not finding it, he stopped a student and asked him, “Excuse me, where’s the library at?”

              Incredulous, the student responded, “Sir, at Harvard we don’t end our sentences with a preposition.”

              Stanley paused for a moment and then rephrased his question in a more grammatically appropriate manner: “Where’s the library at, a*****e?”

              1. You would have come across a version of that story if you had read my blog on Sunday!
  15. No problems with SE, NE and SW (in that order), but needed help with the NW, particularly because I stupidly plumped for MISHAPPEN. Thanks blogger.

    For Keriothe, mishappen resembles misshapen, but doesn’t quite fit, and messes up MARSHAL which resembles my surname.

    Edited at 2014-08-15 10:16 am (UTC)

  16. I started quickly in the NW corner, but the SE proved troublesome and I didn’t finish until 50 minutes had elapsed. ELDRITCH is a bit unusual for a daily, but it’s not uncommon in some of the tougher cryptics. Biggest traps for me were 21 and 29 (I couldn’t escape from the idea of R to be removed from some sort of church). Definition for 1 down puzzled me until I came here.
  17. 20:22 and yes, a tricky puzzle that I very much enjoyed unravelling.

    LOI was resemble even though, unlike K, I have heard favour used in this way a few times.

    Like K, I remembered raceme from it having undone me at the champs. Wasn’t it a pretty iffy clue based around tennis (a bit like Duncan Norvelle’s “Chase Me!”)?

    3d was very well put together (as a twist on Verlaine’s comment I was looking for an anagram of HARD COPY N) but I’ll give COD to splash out.

    Off on holibobs tomorrow so I’ll be offline for a couple of weeks.

  18. Very enjoyable, completed while waiting at the dental hospital.

    Had VALETUDIANARIAN until I got home and checked things.

  19. I cannot find a definition that is synonymous with ‘favour’.

    I’m also interested reading the blog and comments whether you experts have a method or each to his own. It seems maybe the best way is simply to go through and see what comes straightaway…?

    2. Hi anon, do consider giving yourself a name. It costs nothing, has no knock-on effect and makes it all more friendly.

      As a very-much middle ranker, I hesitate to give advice but if feet held to the fire, I would say to work through the clues until you get one and then look at the ones that your answer helps, rather than just slogging on. If you grind to a halt in one area, look at another. I defer to jason and magoo on ultra speed solving, but I believe that there is no rule that answers on paper have to be printed in capitals.

      Edited at 2014-08-15 06:55 pm (UTC)

    3. you need to provide a name (as RonN below has) if you want much in the way of response
  20. 9:48 for me. It was just as well that I was pretty much on the setter’s wavelength as I was feeling dog-tired when I tackled this one. An interesting and enjoyable puzzle.
  21. I was so pleased to have got ‘internationale’ for 5d that it took ages to twig that it was wrong. Made the crossers a bit tricky!
  22. I follow the blog for Times and Sunday Times crosswords in The Australian. I was interested to read Peter’s comments on the club. His comment on The Australian’s Sunday Times crossword is now out of date. It is no longer a special one for Australia. I remember in early 2013 (I think) when it suddenly became harder and caused some angst to Oz letter writers including myself. However I have got over this and appreciate them.
    I usually can solve the Sunday Times and one Times over the period of a week mostly when I wake up in the night and use search for letters as a form of “counting sheep” and then wake up in the morning with the answer.
    I agree with a recent comment from crypticsue “One of those days when you wonder whether your brain had ever understood the concept of cryptic crossword clues”.
    Keep up the good work, thanks for all the bloggers RonN

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