Times 25,935

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
12:04 on the Club timer, which puts me within my daily target of 2 Magoos, so I was clearly on the right wavelength – a sprinkling of classics and religion gave this an old-fashioned feel which I’m usually quite happy with, so maybe that’s why. A couple of raised eyebrows (one later lowered); on the whole, a very pleasant and 10ac puzzle.

Across
1 BERTH – one which went in very late, as it normally helps to have the checkers when the clue is one of those “pick a girl’s name, any girl’s name” type of clues. In this case it’s BERTHA.
4 CARBUNCLE – CAR(vehicle), Black, UNCLEAN.
9 OVERSLEEP – OVERS(a maiden over is one where no runs are scored in cricket), (PEEL)rev.
10 SOLID – Stilton, OLID, a satisfying word for “foul-smelling” which will be more familiar to those who have a bit of Latin (non pecunia olet and all that).
11 ETHNOGRAPHERS – (PERTHNAGHORSE)*. It’s Melbourne Cup day today, which makes the surface very appropriate, but I don’t know if that’s intentional. (For those who don’t know it, that race is the Aussie equivalent of the Grand National, in that it’s an event of national interest, even to people who don’t really follow racing. One of our Antipodean solvers may even have won a fortune at the bookies).
14 DOME – raised eyebrow #1; the answer is a charade type scene, where the setter asks his or her cleaner to “DO ME”; but I always thought the phrase was “DO FOR ME”, as in “The Reverend Spooner is unmarried, but Mrs Miggins does for him”. “DO ME” has far more risque connotations, if you ask me.
15 LEAP SECOND – as well as leap years, where an extra day is added to February every four years, there is the occasional leap second, which keeps our time system in sync with the movement of the Earth and sun, which isn’t as regular as atomic clocks. The last one was in 2012.
18 WAITRESSES – With A1 TRESSES. Concise.
19 CAPE – double def., the item of clothing and the head(land).
21 GORDON BENNETT – [O RD.] in (GENTBENTON)*. A full explanation of why an American newspaperman became an exclamation of surprise can be found here.
24 OVINE – remove the Born from BOVINE (relating to cattle) and you get OVINE (relating to sheep).
25 ASTERISKS – AS THE RISKS; and the symbol which may replace rude words in print if you prefer to spare your readers’ blushes by using **** or B******, instead of “swut” or “Belgium”.
27 OLD STAGER – GATS in [RED, LO]all rev.
28 MAYOR – MAYO, Regina.
 
Down
1 BROKEN DOWN – double def., one involving analysis of data, the other waiting at the roadside for a recovery service.
2 RUE – RUDE minus Daughter.
3 HESTON – as in Charlton Heston – get your hands off me, you stinking ape – and the place best known for the nearby services on the M4. I initially raised my second eyebrow here, as Heston is a full 10 miles from the geographical centre of London, but I have to agree it’s sneaky rather than wrong, as my research reveals it’s well within the boundaries of Greater London; I imagine it’s because I only think of it as a stop on the motorway and not part of the city that I queried it in the first place. Anyway, since Charlton is a real part of London (in the other direction to Heston) it’s a fine, and factually-correct, surface.
4 CHEERLESS – LEER=stare, which “beginning to end” is EERL, inside CHESS.
5 RIP UP – R.I.P.(“final wish”), UP(at Oxford).
6 UNSEEDED – double def., one natural history, one relating to, say, the draw at the Wimbledon championships.
7 COLD STORAGE – i.e. if you put C(=cold) into storage inside I.E., you get ICE. I’ll be honest and admit that I put this one in from the definition and only parsed some time after I’d finished the puzzle…just me?
8 EDDY – D.D.(Doctor of Divinity) in (YE)rev.
12 HUMMINGBIRD – which, if Spoonerised, would become “BUMMING HERD”. If you like Spoonerisms in your crosswords, that’s a pretty inventive one; if you don’t, you’re not going to like it.
13 ADVERTISER – (IT’SAVERRED)*.
16 PRESBYTER – BY inside [Piano, REST, ER]. I managed to stop myself writing in PRECENTOR when I just had the first and last letters, as it doesn’t fit the wordplay, and would have delayed me no end.
17 PRURIENT – (INTERRUPT)*.
20 ANTRUM – N.T. in A RUM; again, a spot of Latin makes this leap off the page.
22 ORANG – ORANGE. I presume I’m not the only one who didn’t realise there are other orangs apart from the utan? It turns out there are, though their existence is shrouded in mystery, as their natural habitat is remote rain forests in the mountains of Sumatra, where it’s easy to remain hidden. A quick Google will reveal all, if you’re interested.
23 TOGO – as in “Do you want that sandwich to eat in or to go?”
26 SPY – SPRINGY minus the RING.

31 comments on “Times 25,935”

  1. Of course you’re right on 26a. I thought it was “spry” removing R for ring but was (rightly) unconvinced. After a nice sprint through the rest of it, the Berth/Heston axis took me nearly 5 minutes I reckon. Part of the problem was that I thought Chuck was still alive. No I didn’t parse “cold storage” either – thanks for that. Thought the Spoonerist bird was a bit of a stretch and I had the same “prurient” thought re “dome”. An excellent puzzle however. 14.14
  2. Well here’s one Antipodean who didn’t make a fortune on the Cup. The four horses I had in my trifecta finished first, second, fourth and dead. Not dead last, actually dead. Unlucky for me, unluckier for the horse.

    Good puzzle, took me nearly an hour but probably shouldn’t have. Not helped by having PHENOGRAPHER and PERCH for way too long. But as we say on Cup day, that’s racing.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  3. A technical DNF as I initially put NAPE at 19A, though I had spotted that it should be CAPE before I came here.

    Other than that it took me 28 minutes for a nice puzzle with some well hidden definitions: “needing help by the way”, “A bit of extra time”, “they may go in for bad language”.

      1. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I’d cause offence by making a light hearted comment anonymously even though there were some poor typos – promise I won’t do it again!
  5. 19 mins. ETHNOGRAPHERS was my FOI and its helpful checkers gave me a toehold in the puzzle, but I stalled for a while halfway through. Answers like WAITRESSES, GORDON BENNETT and my LOI UNSEEDED took much longer to see than I think they should have done. SPY and COLD STORAGE had been entered from definition and checkers so thanks for parsing them. I should have thought of ring=ring so that was just me being dumb, but the C in i.e. in 7dn was cunningly done.
  6. Half an hour. A very enjoyable, light-hearted and witty puzzle. Old fashioned? Yes, in that it conjured up memories of ITMA’s Mrs. Mopp: “Can I do you now, Sir?”

    The print version for 1 across is “Lady lacking a position at work (5)”, which I found confusing.

    1. That was the basis on which I concluded that DOME wasn’t too blue, although I recalled it as just a cleaner on an old radio show.
  7. A sluggish 27 minutes, with a full 10 at the end staring at the BERTH / HESTON crossing. Not knowing that there was a place called Heston, let alone where it was, and being under the impression that Charlton H was still with us didn’t help. I had also run through my mental list of girls’ names beginning with B and Bertha wasn’t on it. Never met one.

    Loved the WAITRESSES clue.

    1. You set me wondering if I know any Berthas, and the only one I could think of was from the 1980s BBC children’s TV show called Bertha. The eponymous Bertha was a factory machine.
  8. Long before its motorway services, Heston was “best known” as the aerodrome at which Neville Chamberlain landed with his fateful “piece of paper”. The M4 service area occupies part of the aerodrome’s site, and traces subsist in local street names. And not too far away in time, running from 1939 to 1949 was the BBC radio series ITMA, in which the charlady Mrs Mopp’s catch phrase was “Can I do you now,
    sir ?”

    Happy days.

    Jim, near Cambridge

  9. More than 2 Magoos but I see that I achieved an Olivia Rhinebeck!

    Tricky in places and so lots of Tippex today.

  10. 15:38 with lots of fun along the way.

    Ethnographers unknown, cold storage unparsed (so it wasn’t just you ,Tim) and antrum written over an initial atrium.

    Gordon B was a bit of a personality in Paris as well. A few years ago I was delighted, when calling in at Roland Garros where the tennis open happens, that I was standing on Avenue Gordon Bennett. Of couse he also crops up on ISIHAC a lot in the late arrivals, as in, at the builders’ ball for instance, please welcome Mr and Mrs Bennett-That’s-Twice-The-Estimate and their son Gordon.

    1. My all-time favourite of those is at the Choral Ball: Kindly welcome Mr & Mrs Igitur & their flamboyant son Gaudy Amos..
      1. My favourite comes from those present at the Grocers’ Ball: Mr & Mrs Baldy-Biscuit and their son Gary.
  11. 34m here which was nearly 150m quicker than my struggle with Saturday’s offering. Maybe it’s the old fashionedness of this but I did seem to know the necessary GK but had to tease out some very slowly. Thanks for the blog -I also started from SPRY lot get to SPY and couldn’t work out GORDON BENNETT either. An enjoyable offering this one so thanks to setter as well.
  12. Oh dear, I’m definitely way behind the field this week so far and actually struggled to finish this one with so many unknowns and oblique (or at least difficult to spot) definitions. I crawled home eventually in 75 minutes.

    Edited at 2014-11-04 02:03 pm (UTC)

  13. 40 minutes with not much to say that hasn’t been said, save I liked it, smirked at the Dick Emeryesque “Do me!” (I’m far too young for ITMA, but my father used to talk about it, and bits I’ve picked up over the years are at least an improvement on the Goons), enjoyed Gordon Bennett (terrific ring to that exclamation), and had never heard of the leap second.
  14. 18.55, solved in piecemeal fashion, which today included a couple of half-answers chucked in to encourage the others. Less helpful was a tentative ANTHRO… at 11, because it was there in the grist and more or less relevant.
    Blenched briefly at a ?A?E at 19, but relaxed a bit when a plausible answer obliged.
    I tried entering 20 as a “hidden”, perhaps ARRECH or RECHAM for a set of books I hadn’t heard of. Liked the Spoonerism, but I suspect the good Rev Dr himself might have sniffed a bit.
  15. I did this on a train going to a meeting in Dorchester, an old town that only flirts with the 21st century – a bit like this puzzle

    DO-ME immediately had me in ITMA land and thanks to Anax I’m guessing a few more solvers will at least have heard of the old radio favourite. Good to see LEAP SECOND, which I’m guessing Ulaca wasn’t alone in not being aware of its use

    An easy 20 minute puzzle but fun to solve

  16. About 30 minutes with 2 unparsed, (7d and SPY), so thanks t-tim. I did know about leap seconds.
  17. An enjoyable puzzle for me. I may have achieved a better time if I was not listening to the Real Madrid/Liverpool match as I tackled it. Now half-time and amazing that Liverpool are in the situation they are. (I won’t say what the score is in case anyone is recording the match to see/losten to it later).
  19. Technically a DNF for me today as I gave up after an hour or so without TOGO. Was also watching snooker so not really an accurate time anyway.I used to own a bar a few years ago where we regularly booked a band called the Gordon Bennett Band who were very popular. Never really knew the history of him so thanks to Tim for the link. Also unaware that “carbuncle” was a stone too. I expect that most people associate the word with the comments of Prince Charles about the National Gallery. Liked 18A for its elegant surface. Add me to the list of people who have never heard of a “leap second” although it was very guessable with the checkers in place.
  20. 10:48 for me, making heavy weather of some easy clues as usual. No problem with HESTON though, as it’s not far from Ealing; or with DOME, recalling (like others) Mrs Mopp of ITMA.

    Another enjoyable puzzle.

  21. 20 minutes at the end of a long day. Not sure that I would have done better had I been able to follow my usual regime of toast, coffee and the crossword but a nice way to wind down. Laughed at HUMMINGBIRD and TOGO. My favourite was Willie Rushton’s Mr & Mrs It from Australia and their Pommie Gran.

Comments are closed.