Times 25894

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I’m on double duty today, subbing again for Jerrywh, who is still on some extreme walking adventure I believe. Unlike last Wednesday, I found this a straightforward test, could have been a PB except I was thinking about the parsing as I went along; it was complete in 17 minutes with no need for aids or reference books.

Across
1 HATE MAIL – (HAMLET)* around AI (outstanding), you don’t expect adulation in this.
5 BARRIO – BAR (café), RIO (port), def. what they call the port area in Spanish seaside places. EDIT Well I should have looked it up; I am put right below, by our NYC reader, it can mean a district in any Spanish city, not necessarily the port; and (not relevant here) in the US it is used to mean the Spanish speaking (poor) area, equivalent to ghetto. I got carried away with the ‘port’ bit because I know where it is in Valencia!
9 EULOGISE – EU (Europe), LOG (record), IsSuEs; def. praise, as a verb.
10 FLOPPY – FLY (pilot, as a verb) around OP P, def. drooping.
12 CALAMITY JANE – CITY (London perhaps) around A LAM (a hit), then JAN(uary), E(dinburgh); def. musical. I dislike almost all musicals and am glad to say I have never seen the film or the stage version.
15 ALL IN – (G)AIN (profit, initial letter deleted), with L L (fifty pounds) inserted; def. spent.
16 DETERRENT – DENT (slight damage) around TERRE (French for land); def. nuclear weapon, maybe.
18 GLADSTONE – GONE (left) around LADS (young men) T (first of them); def. Prime Minister. I remember little about William Ewart G from my O level history, except for his name, that he did the job a record four times and he allegedly jumped a five-barred gate at the age of eighty.
19 MILAN – M1 LAN(E) (part of motorway incomplete); def. Italian city.
20 APPLICATIONS – (SIC IN A LAPTOP)*, def. programs.
24 EVER SO – Hidden in CL(EVER SO)NGWRITER’S; def. exceptionally.
25 UPTOWNER – U PT (sophisticated part) OWNER (man of property), def. resident of Chicago, maybe.
27 HOEING – EIN (German for ‘a’) inside HOG (corner, monopolise); def. using garden tool.
27 GREEN TEA – G (good) RE-ENTE(R) (pop in again, briefly), A; def. drink.

Down
1 HEED – EH? (what), reversed = HE, ED (journalist); def. take notice.
2 TALE – T (tip from gourmet), ALE (beer); def. pork pie, CRS for lie.
3 MIGRAINES – (A GRIM NISE)*, the O is removed from NOISE; def. caused by a grim noise perhaps.
4 IT’S HARD TO SAY – double definition.
6 ALLAY – ALL DAY, with the D (daughter) missing; def. temper, moderate.
7 REPEATEDLY – REP (traveller), (H)EATEDLY (angrily, blowing top); def. time and time again.
8 OXYGEN TENT – OXEN (animals) around Y (unknown) GENT (fellow), then T (extra tons); OX(Y GENT)EN T, def. breathing space.
11 LITTLE DIPPER – LITTLE (modest), DIPPER (fairground attraction); def. stars, the constellation Ursa Minor.
13 BANGLADESH – BANS (outlaws) around GLADE (part of wood), H (horse), def. country.
14 ALTAR PIECE – Sounds like ALTER (convert), PEACE (still), def. church display.
17 ROMAN NOSE – (MANOR ONES)*, def. prominent feature.
21 IBSEN – IS with B (book) inside, then EN (French for in); def. writer.
22 UNIT – T (employment, finally), after UNI (higher education); def. one.
23 PROA – PR (pair) OA(R), def. small boat. That Pacific craft again, seen frequently in crossword waters.

39 comments on “Times 25894”


  1. Yep, could have been a pb for me today, too, as all went in without hitch, until I reached my loi, where I put pria (only semi-parsed) in for the unknown boat. Should have thought about it for a little longer, and the oar bit may have clicked. Doh!

    About 21 mins, but woe, so that doesn’t count, does it?

  2. Either a technical DNF in 28 minutes or all complete in 30 minutes given that when I checked my parsing at the end I changed OXYGEN TANK to OXYGEN TENT. I’ll take the latter.

    I’m curious as to what an ipad user would do in this situation given that it tells you whether or not you have them all correct.

    1. If I have any errors after I’ve stopped the clock I count it as a DNF. If I’m solving online or on paper I always check through for typos before doing so, but I don’t look at the parsing so I wouldn’t have picked this one up anyway.
      On the iPad, I know as soon as I’ve finished whether I have an error, so there’s no need to check through for typos. So it occurs to me that some of the times I’m reporting during the working week are understated to the extent that the checking time would have taken me from rounding down to the nearest minute to rounding up to the next one.
      What a disgraceful fraud I am.
  3. Agreed, an easy one today with no twists or turns

    I well remember seeing Doris Day and Howard Keel in the 1950s film of CALAMITY JANE – great stuff

  4. Worked steadily through this until the end with ALLAY / FLOPPY missing and UPTOWNER / UNIT / PROA still to go. Would have helped if I’d known the boat.

    (“You should have bought a squirrel!” resounds in my ears.)

    An 8dn is responsible for my continuing existence in this world, having been born practically dead. So good to see that old technology still remembered.

    COD to the musical.

  5. 13 mins. At first I didn’t think this was going to be easy because MILAN was my FOI, but the answers soon started to flow. I was held up slightly by ALLAY, BARRIO and OXYGEN TENT in the NE, and then the UPTOWNER/UNIT crossers in the SE. It was an enjoyable puzzle to solve.
  6. I think the definition at 16ac is “nuclear weapon – maybe”.

    I didn’t find this as easy as others, got stuck and nodded off so I have no solving time other than it was some way over my half-hour target. Same problem as Pootle at 8dn but spotted my error.

    Edited at 2014-09-17 08:20 am (UTC)

  7. Reasonably straightforward but I had to resort to aids to get UPTOWNER, not a term I’m familiar with, even with all the cross-checkers in place.
  8. 9m. No problems, no unknowns. I even knew PROA from crosswords past. Nice puzzle though.
    I’m with you on musicals.
  9. Scrambled round, not always knowing how, in 17.38. I was converted to musicals by West Side Story which came out round about as I finished school. Got to admit, and it hurts doing so, I also liked South Pacific at the time. Don’t go much for opera though.
    1. Why does it hurt to admit you liked South Pacific – and I’m guessing you mean the film circa 1959 rather than the stage show circa 1949

      The R & H score is first class and the story tackles the question of mixed race children, destructive snobbery, etc. Quite bold for its time, particularly in a show designed for a mass market audience

      1. Yes, the film. The story was and is a good one; but still to be seduced in memory by a latter-day Circe singing Bali Hai is slightly embarrassing. As ulaca suggests the score’s the difference. SP’s successful and kitsch-lovely, like The Sound of Music. OK, OK, I still like it. Somewhat.
    2. Wets Side Story is class. But then so was Bernstein in every facet: composer, pianist, conductor. Missing anything?
      2. Under the heading of trivia he is known in some technical circles for having written his life story in electronic form in a password protected e-document that to this day, so far as I know, nobody has succeeded in opening! With your will you should keep a list of your passwords – but few do.
        1. I agree, LB was a great musician, but with a personal life that could be described as ‘complicated’. Indeed you are right Jimbo, it seems as yet no-one has cracked the autobiog document – a pity. It reminds me to update my own password protected password list!

          I think as a teenager I overdosed, I saw the WSS movie seven times and the Sound of Music seven times, all with the same girlfriend, in the back row when possible; she was worth it but I still don’t much like musicals. Or dancing the tango … is that hat Photoshopped on?

  10. Oh, well, at least it’s 18 month since PROA last appeared in the main puzzle. Forgetting it, I sank without trace after 38 minutes…
  11. I thought it was just a quarter of a Spanish city, not necessarily the port area. In the US it’s a Spanish-speaking neighbourhood as in Spanish Harlem. I’m not sure how Chicagoans describe themselves but we uptown dwellers of NYC never call ourselves “uptowners”, and conversely I would never call my children, who live in trendy Brooklyn, “downtowners”. Completely off wavelength this morning at 19.35.
    1. It is. Pip seems to be ascribing double duty to the port, which is just Rio.
      I’m not actually sure if I’ve ever heard UPTOWNER, but I just derived it from ‘uptown’: a word I originally learned from Billy Joel.
      1. My knee-jerk reaction is to not allow Billy Joel to take any credit for anything, so let me offer Randy Edelman “Uptown uptempo woman” and Althea and Donna “Uptown top ranking” as alternative (and earlier) sources of the word.
        1. I’m not giving him credit for coining the word, but that’s where I first heard it. It can’t be helped I’m afraid.
          1. I actually meant the credit for first informing you of the word, which I thought perhaps you might have encountered in one of the two songs I mentioned, but apparently not. Score 1 to Billy Joel.
  12. Technically dnf, as needed aids for UPTOWNER and PROA, but otherwise it went steadily with a few challenges along the way. I initially mis-spelled DETERRENT with an errant A in place of the last E (a common mistake for me), which led to REAPEATABLE which didn’t parse very satisfactorily (angrily does not equate to heatable, although I wanted it to). I soon spotted the error of my ways though.
  13. Straightforward but still enjoyable. Another person here who’d gladly never see another musical in their life (but with two musical-loving parents is unlikely to have that wish granted).
  14. Much better than yesterday with the iPad ‘proper’ keyboard restored. Many went in unparsed so thanks pip.
  15. What was looking like a 20-25-minute solve turned into 40 minutes as I got bogged down in the NE and SE corners, 25 being my LOI. I entered ALLOY for 6, since it means temper, but checked the wordplay and altered it to ALLAY.
    Another puzzle with a nice set of clues.
  16. Punished on the leaderboard for a typo, but trust me I would never have entered HATE NAIL or NIGRAINES deliberately!

    BARRIO and PROA were unknowns. Nice bunch of clues, but no standout for me.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  17. Done in 20 mins. Two gripes: for FLOPPY, pressure at work gives POP and not OPP and that looked unfair – but maybe it is common in charades.

    For BANGLADESH, the definition is ‘the country’, which I felt was rather incorrect.

    1. At, by, on, next to, etc carry no indication of order in Crosswordland.

      The definition in 13dn is simply “country” so any sovereign nation is eligible and possibly a good many that aren’t sovereign too.

      Contributions from newcomers are always welcome here but it’s better form to add a name to anon comments. A made-up name is fine. Better still, open a free account with Live Journal and create your own identity.

      1. Thanks, will add an ID for tomorrow. If ‘country’ were the definition, then the article ‘the’ is simply padding and plays no role in the wordplay – hence my grouse.

        Agree with your opinion on the usage of ‘at’.

  18. 33m all correct steady solve though delayed by the SE, by not seeing UPTOWNER and PROA and thus missing an increasingly rare sub 30. Shucks! I love musicals but rarely get to see them without going to the ‘smoke’ so in for a treat on Friday with Top Hat in Newcastle Theatre Royal. Thanks for blog and also to setter for an enjoyable solve.

    Edited at 2014-09-17 02:53 pm (UTC)

  19. About 20 minutes, ending with the UNIT/UPTOWNER crossing pair, and completely unhappy with UPTOWNER. I’m from NYC originally, and there we had a downtown, uptown, and even a midtown. But I’ve never heard anyone say UPTOWNER. It’s certainly an understandable derivation, so once I saw UNIT, I saw ‘-owner’ and the rest came from there, but I remain displeased by it. I confess, though, to searching for and finding the fact that wiki actually identifies an Uptown Chicago neighborhood, in Chicago. I’d never heard of it. And I don’t know if people living there use ‘uptowner’ either. Since the way the clue is written signals an Americanism, at least to me, I’m a tad befuddled that I’ve never heard the term over here. Oh well. Regards.
    1. Not for the first time, I find that the absence of knowledge can be helpful. The girl from the Billy Joel video + ER, looks OK, move on.
  20. A surprisingly quick time for me tonight, so I expect a horror story tomorrow.
    Sad to confess that I had rather more trouble with the Quick Cryptic today, but I suppose that’s the way it goes sometimes.

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