Times 25868 – The road up and down is one and the same….

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 27 minutes

Music: Mozart, Marriage of Figaro Highlights, Giulini/Wachter/Schwartzkopf/Cossotto/Taddei/Moffo/Philharmonia Orchestra

This Monday offering was a piece of cake for an
academic sort like yours truly….how could you be listening to Mozart and not write in
‘nocturne’ for 5 down? There were a fair number of letter removal and substitution clues,
including an unusual ‘replace all’ style clue. I nearly made a fatal blunder as I finished
up in the NW, wanting to put ‘diet’ until I found the cleverly hidden answer to 2 down.

Speaking of opera, I notice that Lucia Albanese has just passed on. She was born in 1909,
and what a different world it was!

Across
1 DUMA, A + MUD backwards, the Russian Parliament.
3 SOUNDBOARD, double definition, one jocular. Yes, a sound board is what you need to have a well-run company!
10 NOT HALF, double definition alluding to the half-empty glass of the pessimist.
11 CATIONS, CA[u]TIONS, a clever letter-removal clue. Their opposite numbers are ‘anions’, which see.
12 ANOTHER CUP OF TEA, double definition.
13 ENGELS, EN(GEL)S. ‘Ens’ is a term for ‘being’ from scholastic philosophy, the non-existent present participle of Latin ‘esse’. The schoolmen had a lot to answer for.
14 ANTERIOR, A + [i]NTERIOR. I had ‘interior’, but couldn’t justify it, so thought again.
17 TUTORIAL, TUT + OR(I)AL.
18 STRATA, A + TARTS backwards.
21 WISHFUL THINKING, anagram of FLING WITH HUNK, a fine semi-&lit.
23 EPIGRAM, [lan]E + PIG + RAM. The literal is somewhat inaccurate; an ‘epigram’ is a witty saying written by a skilled author, while a ‘saw’ is a proverbial saying.
24 SAUSAGE, S[alvation] A[rmy] USAGE.
25 DEPOSITORY DEPOSITARY, anagram of EDITOR PAYS. Always count the letters in ‘obvious’ anagrams!
26 PELT, double definition.
 
Down
1 DUNNAGE, DUN(NAG)E. A word I had never heard of, but clear enough from the cryptic. It is stuff used for packing around a ship’s cargo.
2 METHOUGHT, hidden in [Ro]ME THOUGHT T[ravel-sick].
4 ON FORM, replace every letter ‘I’ with ‘O’ in INFIRM.
5 NOCTURNE, NO C(TURN)E, where the enclosing letters are the old E.C. postal code + ON, being ‘uplifted’ in this down answer.
6 BITE ONE’S TONGUE, double definition.
7 ADOPT, ADO + P.T., physical training.
8 DESPAIR, D + E + S + PAIR, a compendium of cryptic cliches.
9 BACHELOR OF ARTS, anagram of CLOTHES FOR ARAB.
15 INANIMATE< IN(A NI)MATE. ‘Someone forcibly confined’ is not the root meaning of ‘inmate’, which originally indicated just a resident or inhabitant, as in the famous line “But his sagacious eye an inmate owns”.
16 TABLE MAT, TAME + L + BAT upside down. More often called a ‘placemat’ in the US.
17 TOWHEAD, WOT backwards + HEAD. In the US, this word refers to a small child with very fair hair – see http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/01/towhead.html.
19 AUGMENT, AUG([-us]+MEN)T, a word-substitution clue.
20 CHASER, double definition, a ‘chaser’ being a horse trained to compete in the steeplechase.
22 SKIMP, SKI(M)P.

35 comments on “Times 25868 – The road up and down is one and the same….”

  1. Obviously not quite as academic as I thought, as well as listening to the wrong music, Chopin’s B-flat minor piano sonata failing miserably to trigger NOCTURNE. Apart from that, I struggled to make the required substitution at 4d, leaving it unclear whether the first word was ON or IN, and spent 5 minutes at the end on the 1s.

    On the other hand, I did go back and check the fodder at 25a, which necessitates DEPOSITARY rather than ‘depository’.

  2. Got the long ones in quickly apart from ANOTHER CUP OF TEA and wondered whether that is even a common expression. Is it? Also pondered what the children might be doing in the clue for 7dn. Thought the hidden in 2dn was good.
  3. Like Vinyl, I wondered about TOWHEAD (a blond(e) child where we come from) and EPIGRAM. I also wondered–time-consumingly–what the children were doing in 7d. I have a marginal scrawl at 13ac that I can’t decipher, but I do remember that I was looking for ‘red’ or ‘trot’, and ENGELS came rather later on. DNK DUNNAGE, Rather liked AUGMENT.

    Edited at 2014-08-18 03:20 am (UTC)

  4. I always associate “another cup of tea” with Mrs Doyle from Father Ted.
    But I do have a spoof Dr Finlay sketch in mind … though it’s not quite fit for posting here.

    Edited at 2014-08-18 05:01 am (UTC)

  5. 35 minutes to complete the grid, but then when going back to check wordplay I found that I needed to change 4dn from “on fire” to ON FORM and (like the blogger) “depository” to DEPOSITARY which was an unknown.

    Also didn’t know DUNNAGE, CATIONS or the ENS element of 13ac.

    Like mct I wondered about “another cup of tea”. A brief trawl through the internet suggests that it does exist, most usually in the expression “that’s quite another cup of tea”. But before looking it up it seemed most familiar to me with reference 1) to “Dr Finlay’s Casebook” in it’s original TV incarnation where Janet was always offering the Drs Finlay and Cameron “Another cup of tea?” – or on reflection, was that just impressionists of the time making fun of the programme?, and 2) to Bernard Cribbens’ song “Right Said Fred” which ends with the line ” So Fred and me had another cup o’ tea and then we went ‘ome”.

  6. So a rip-roaring start to the week. CATIONS, ENS, DEPOSITARY and DUNNAGE were unknown, but sounded right. DUMA and NOCTURNE known only from crosswords. TOWHEAD known as blonde, but hey we learn something new (or unlearn something old) every day.

    Agree with McT about 12ac. I’m more familiar with “not my cup of tea”, as in “South African rugby referees are not my cup of tea”.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  7. 18’17”, but failed to make the substitutions in 4 ending with ON FIRE, which takes care of both ends but not the middle of the clue. Methinks I’m not the only one.
    DEPOSITARY looks wrong (or Dickensian), though given in BRB, and the anagram leaves no choice.
    TOWHEAD my brain immediately associated with Mark Twain, as a descriptor for Huck Finn. Or Tom Sawyer. Turns out that’s doubly wrong: it’s not how Twain described his heroes, but it is what he called a river island. I also assumed it derived from tousle headed. Sometimes I feel like I’ve just stepped in from a parallel universe. In mine, that’s how it seems it always was.
    Liked ENGELS (as a clue, that is) and AUGMENT

    Edited at 2014-08-18 06:39 am (UTC)

  8. 22 minutes, to Classic FM, ending with DEPOSITARY as being correct from the anagram but not a familiar spelling. My DUMA went in first. I had INTERIOR and missed the definition ‘at the front’ so one wrong DNF. 2 dn and 21 ac excellent clueing. ‘That’s (quite) another cup of tea (altogether)’ was a familiar phrase to me, in various versions. Nice blog Vinyl.
  9. I’ve not been timing my recent solves but they’ve all been on the leisurely side done on a sunbed in Rhodes. I’m definitely more focussed when trying to fit the crossword into a commute. On the flip side I’m enjoying spending time teasing out the more awkward clues.

    When 3 of 4 long ones went straight in today I thought this wouldn’t take much longer than an Indian test innings. However the unknowns were like a wagging tail, CATIONS and DUNNAGE slowing me considerably. I liked the unusual clueing style for ON FORM.

  10. 36′ but with interior, not thinking again, again. 7 seems a little clumsy. Rather liked the 9 surface.
    1. Some of us of a certain age (I was 13 I think) remember the infamous Texas Book Depository. Both that clue and “anterior” repaid careful parsing. 20.4
  11. 10m, so obviously on the wavelength for this one.
    I don’t think I’ve ever come across the expression ANOTHER CUP OF TEA in this context, but I didn’t even notice this while solving: I think it just went in the basis of the existence of ‘not my cup of tea’ and the second definition.
    I didn’t know DUNNAGE, but the wordplay was very helpful. I did know ENS: I have the impression it appears quite regularly, but perhaps that’s just in Mephisto.
    I didn’t know this meaning of DEPOSITARY, which put me on my guard, so I checked the anagram fodder. And I knew the word TOWHEAD but not what it meant, so I didn’t think twice. Sometimes a little ignorance helps smooth things along.
  12. Good start to the week for me, at least. I knew DUNNAGE, but wanted it to be BALLAST until the checkers made me think again, knew CATIONS and I’d heard of ANOTHER CUP OF TEA. Like others, the long ones went in relatively quickly, but DEPOSITARY was quite another cup of tea for me.

    Well set and well blogged.

  13. . . . and for once checking the letters for 25ac. ANOTHER CUP OF TEA was new to me but it had to be. It took a while before I latched on to the correct parliament for 1ac, having toyed with the other two.
  14. 40 minutes. Quite a few unknowns, but the wordplay was all straightforward, so getting the answers wasn’t too difficult.
    Did anyone else enter BELT for 26? This is just as valid an answer, as it also fits both definitions; the second definition of ‘hide’ in Chambers is ‘to flog or whip’, so the clue seems ambiguous to me.
    1. I also put fell for the BELT trap, so naturally I quite agree! Surely someone else fell for this too. Would it be an allowable alternative if it were a competition?

      Edited at 2014-08-18 02:34 pm (UTC)

      1. I don’t think it was a trap. A trap is where there is only one valid answer, but the clue may be so worded (deliberately or not) as to mislead solvers into putting an incorrect one. This was a straight double definition where the setter and editor have overlooked another, perfectly good answer. If it were a competition it would have to be allowed. The editors of the Listener crossword, which is a competition puzzle, always allow an unforeseen alternative answer if it’s valid. I should emphasize that such occasions are extremely rare – the last instance was several years ago, I think.
        1. I’d say both are valid but pelt the more so, owing to the considerably deeper unearthing of the ‘hide’ sense for the other.
        2. The second definition in Chambers includes HIDE as the noun skin, and HIDE as the verb flog. That would make the clue not a double definition, but a single definition with 2 instances. While poor compilers do that in other newspapers it never, ever (i.e. very rarely) happens in the Times.
          As such your protest might be on shaky grounds?
          24 mins, the last 5 or 6 on the recalcitrant 1s and the SUASAGE and CHASER.
          Rob
          1. I don’t understand why you say “your protest”. I didn’t ‘protest’ about anything, I was merely commenting on Allan’s use of the word ‘trap’ While I agree that double definitions should come from different dictionary entries, I think you are wrong to say that’s always, or almost always the case in the Times. In any case that is a dubious argument since it assumes that a solver is expected to know past precedent, which is unreasonable, especially if the solver is a newcomer to The Times.
  15. 25 mins. I wasn’t on the setter’s wavelength at all, and struggled particularly in the NE where I had initially entered a careless “in form” at 4dn. Until I fixed it I couldn’t get 3ac, and that was eventually my LOI. In the same quadrant I also took a long time to see NOCTURNE, CATIONS and ANTERIOR. Mind you, I was slower than normal on the Codeword this morning so maybe I’m just having a bad day.
  16. 22.10 but, like Z, thought I was ON FORM and proved not to be. Several others went in without parsing from definition and a couple of checkers and I guess I grew careless. Very familiar with ‘not my cup of tea’ but ANOTHER CUP OF TEA is a different kettle of fish. D’oh moment with DUMA having only thought of DIET, DAIL and RUMP.
  17. After an arduous 90″ yomp, unlike Malc I was neither ON FORM nor ON FIRE since the latter was my answer. Happily England XI were both!. I also put INTERIOR in for 14a.

    A tough Monday start to the week.

  18. No music in the background, but solved while eating a very nice bar of chocolate in a time of 9:20. Not sure that a colleague is going to present me with chocolate every day or even that it would be a good crossword accompaniment given that I solve at least six cryptic crosswords a day.
  19. I finished under my one hour target, with no problems at 4 or 14. I initially put in IN FORM, but changed it as soon as I wondered what the ‘always’ was doing. Didn’t make the INTERIOR mistake, as I applied my pet rule of thumb that if the clue begins with the word A, the answer probably begins with the letter A.
  20. This dropped out quite quickly for me – just under 15 minutes – despite initially struggling to get a foot in the door and a few dnks: cations, depositary and dunnage, with duma only vaguely remembered. Not as easy as some of the recent Monday offerings, perhaps.
  21. About 30 minutes or so. I also had to change IN FORM to ON FORM before I could see 3A. DNK CATIONS, this meaning of TOWHEAD, or ENS, but I was OK with the rest. LOI was PELT because of the alternatives. Regards.
  22. I also had the incorrect ‘interior’ at 14a. Otherwise, would have been 24m 50s.
    Need to parse more carefully (I tell myself again).
  23. 11:52 for me, exhausted after tackling a particularly fiendish Times crossword from 1946! I hadn’t come across DEPOSITARY before (must add it to my list of difficult words) or ANOTHER CUP OF TEA (the online OED includes “a different cup of tea (and similar expressions): something of an altogether different kind”.

    In fact I spent far too long agonising over DEPOSITARY, and the Y in the anagram put the wind up me for 20dn (Drink for horse = CHASER), since I had ‑H‑S‑‑ in place, and wondered if WHISKY might have been a famous Derby winner!

    An interesting and enjoyable puzzle nonetheless, though the possibility of both BELT and PELT for 26ac was an unfortunate oversight.

  24. I found this hard last night but this morning when I finally finished it I can’t really see why. I put it down to spending the day at Gulliver’s World with two little Granddaughters and a heavily pregnant daughter when the weather forecast turned out to be supremely optimistic.

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