Times 25948 – heat one puzzle three

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A 7dn puzzle which took me 20 minutes, faster than the other two in this heat. No obscure words but a ferry port, a Crimean resort famous for the 1945 Conference and an Irish officer of the law call upon your general knowledge.

Across
1 CAPACITY – Cap (better, as a verb), A (second from Jack), CITY (London perhaps); def. volume.
5 MASSIF – MASS (state, of USA, abbr.) IF (condition); def. mountain is seen in.
10 STRANRAER – ST (way) RAN (passed) RAER (REAR – back, in the wrong direction); def. port, from whence ferries ply, or plied (until November 2011, apparently; see gasmanjack below) to Larne in Northern Ireland.
11 GARDA – Hidden word, Beg(GAR DA)ring; a member of An Garda Síochána, the Irish police force.
12 AMOS – AS (for example), around MO (doctor); prophetic book of the Old Testament, of which even I had heard.
13 GIBBERISH – BIG reversed, then (HERBS I)*; def. rhubarb.
15 CONSEQUENT – CONSENT (agreement) with QUE (Spanish for ‘what’) inserted; def. resulting. Even if you had no Spanish you might remember Manuel in Fawlty Towers saying ‘que?’
17 WHOA – W (wife) plus HOA(X) (a fast one, short of an X = kiss); def. stop!
19 AVER – A (answer), VER (over = finished, not started); def. say with conviction.
20 FALLING FOR – Double definition.
22 BLUEBERRY – BLUE (depressed), BY (times, as in multiplied by), insert E R R (regular letters of dEaReR); def. fruit.
24 SORT – SHORT (small whisky) loses H(usband); def. kind.
26 OZONE – O (over) ZONE (area); allotrope of oxygen (O3), a pale blue gas with a pungent smell detectable at as low as 10 parts per billion in air; named by the Greek word for smell, ὄζειν.
27 ILL AT EASE – ILL A (football team Aston VILLA less the V to kick it off) TEASE (synonym for guy, seen oft in these parts); def. worried.
28 SEDATE – S E (extremely sociable), DATE (boyfriend); def. drug, as a verb.
29 CALENDAR – (CLEAR)* indicated by ‘doctor’, around (DNA)* indicated by ‘a bit different’; def. diary.

Down
1 CAST – CATS (animals) with the last 2 letters turned; def. shy, as in throw.
2 PORTMANTEAU WORD – (WOMAN TARTED UP OR)*, def. ‘Oxbridge’ is an example of such. Lewis Carroll first used the term; Humpty Dumpty, talking about ‘slithy’ and ‘mimsy’, explains the practice of combining words in various ways by telling Alice,
‘You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.’ Oddly enough, in French it now means a coat-rack, but originally it meant a suitcase with two or more compartments.
3 CANISTER – Took me a while to see how to parse this; obvious when you do. RETSINA (Greek wine) C (about), all reversed; def. where film may be seen.
4 TWANG – Double def; you pluck or twang a stringed instrument, and regional speech can have a twang.
6 ARGUED – A RED (revolutionary) around GU(N); def. fallen out.
7 STRAIGHTFORWARD – Double def; honest, and easy.
8 FLASH HARRY – Flash (very short time), Harry (worry, pursue); def. show-off.
9 TRIBUNAL – TRIAL (pilot), around BUN (bung, bribe, without the G); def. hearing.
14 SCRAP BOOKS – SCRAPS (fights) around BOOK (reserve); def. collections of cuttings.
16 UNAFRAID – UNA (tuna, fish, without initial letter), F(ollowing) RAID (attack); def. game, up for it, not afraid.
18 ANISETTE – Anagram of ESTAMINET without the M (Frenchman, monsieur); def. what might be drunk (in a French café).
21 OBJECT – Double def; object = thing, object = idea, as in ‘that was the idea of going there’. Well, my best idea for it so far.
23 YALTA – Y (unknown) A (area) around ALT (key); Black Sea resort in the Crimea.
25 DEER – Dee (one river) R (another river); def. does, female deer.

45 comments on “Times 25948 – heat one puzzle three”

  1. Of which far too much time at the end pondering CANISTER and AMOS. Best clue to the other drink: ANISETTE at 18dn.

    Could have been a pangram but for the X. XMAS for AMOS would have fixed that — and then, maybe, I wouldn’t have been so stumped.

  2. 32 minutes for all but STRANRAER, which is about as obscure as they get from down here. Probably should have got it from the wordplay, but as a rugby person I find it impossible to equate passed with ran.

    Oh well, other than that it was an enjoyable challenge. COD to GARDA, simply because I took so long to see the hidden.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

    1. Only known from growing up with my Dad checking his football pools from the football scores on the radio. Best ever was “East Fife 4, Forfar 5”.
  3. 41 minutes but it seemed longer than that when solving. Film seen in canister? I suppose so, but surely a bit obscure despite (I imagine) being the origin of “in the can” in film-making jargon. Also I’m not clear how ‘passed’ = RAN, though I’m probably missing something obvious (not for the first time).

    Edited at 2014-11-19 07:36 am (UTC)

    1. Two goats are eating a couple of film canisters. One looks up and says to the other: “I prefered the book myself”.
    2. Hi Jack. Surely if the film is in the canister you can’t see it – shouldn’t it be “where film may be stored”?
  4. But I did somehow finish, although I had to look up STANRAER in the atlas I just bought, which has an index in a large enough typeface that I can read it. I spent lots of time thinking of ‘by the way’ first as VIA then as SP (PS ‘passed back’), and some more time at 29ac thinking of synonyms for ‘dairy’. I bet I took longer than Galspray to find the hidden GARDA. DNK FLASH HARRY, and actually put in ‘flash scare’, although not for long. Liked CAPACITY especially. Pip, hardly worth mentioning but you’ve got a typo at 12ac.

    Edited at 2014-11-19 07:46 am (UTC)

  5. I made a mistake in this on the day, spelling the place Scandinavian style as STRANRAAR for no good reason at all. In fact, I just did it again this morning, which is alarming because I know how to spell Stranraer. Am I allowed a (Sigh … ) or does Tony S have the copyright?

    I think I found this the easiest of the 3 on the day.

    1. >…
      >Am I allowed a (Sigh … ) or does Tony S have the copyright?

      Be my guest. You’ll annoy dorsetjimbo, but what the heck!


  6. Not timed, but probably about 45mins or so, with the two drinks (CANISTER, ANISETTE) unparsed. Thanks for the explanation at 2dn… I often wondered how the coat hanger meaning had anything to do with combined words.
  7. I did rather more of this than I’m prepared to admit before I realised I had done it before. I had somehow completely forgotten solving FLASH HARRY, for instance.
    My last in on the day was STRANRAER, which I needed the wordplay to spell. It didn’t even occur to me at the time but I’m also struggling to see how ‘passed’ means RAN.

    Edited at 2014-11-19 08:56 am (UTC)

    1. Well I’m willing to admit that I finished it and came here forgetting not only that I had solved it before but also that I did the same last Wednesday. Most likely explanation is that being a few decades older than you I have lost more brain cells. Anyway, 17 minutes (again).
  8. Collins (verb, sense 2 of 29): ‘to run, extend, or lead through, over, or across (a place) ⇒ the route passes through the city’
    1. Thanks. I only had access to Chambers (which doesn’t have it) on my iPhone when I made my comment. Interesting that two respectable dictionaries can disagree on the meaning of such a simple word! I still struggle with it personally, because I don’t think that the fact that ‘pass through’ and ‘run through’ are synonymous necessarily means that ‘pass’ and ‘run’ are synonymous, but clearly my argument isn’t with the setter.
      1. I’ve now found this under RUN in SOED:
        6 verb intrans. Pass, spread, or move quickly from point to point; (of a plant) climb; (of a sound) be repeated in quick succession; Music sing or play quickly. OE. ▸ b Of a weapon: pass easily and quickly through. ME. ▸ c Of a thought etc.: come into or pass through the mind suddenly; revolve in the mind, recur persistently. ME. ▸ d Of the eye: glance, look quickly or cursorily. Foll. by down, along, etc. E17.

        Anyway I’m glad I wasn’t alone in not understanding it!

        Edited at 2014-11-19 10:03 am (UTC)

  9. Apart from the minor point about CANISTER I also found this fair and largely 7D. 20 minutes to solve. Couldn’t remember how to spell STRANRAER but the cryptic “back in the wrong direction” was clear

    I try to avoid sighing as so far as I can tell it serves no purpose whatsoever

  10. Well I suppose one opens the canister and sees it before taking it out, but point taken, and I still think it’s all a bit iffy.
  12. 26’22. A workmanlike puzzle that I found a bit grey for some reason, like the morning. Cheered slightly by the mention of Jack London though.
  13. A very good puzzle, I thought, which took me 41 minutes, which means I solved all three puzzles in round 1 correctly within around 2 hours. They should have a competition for people like us.

    [They seem to want to keep Johnny Foreigner from winning, though – which I’m all for – with flash Harry and Stranraer. The latter features centrally in Dorothy Sayers’ all but unreadable Five Red Herrings, along with ‘Niggers and Dagoes’ and Imph’m.]

    1. Janey Foreigner here (these days anyway). I’d completely forgotten about Stranraer in that book. Read it once – never again. Ay imph’m.

      I’d also forgotten about Flash Harry – my mother didn’t let me see the movies and I could only sample the books in a cousin’s house.

      16.51 today so with the other 2 prelims I would have squeaked by at 57 minutes total. Except that I wouldn’t because I’d be immobilised by test fright. So a compey for the second XI sounds like a very good idea.

  14. 35 minutes. Was enjoying this and making rapid progress until I spotted the small print about it being a competition puzzle: this immediately paralysed my brain. Am I alone in not wishing to know anything about the daily puzzle other than its number? Not who compiled it, not where it was last used, nothing; just cool anonymity and no preconceived ideas.

    No problem with STRANRAER (the Stena ferry to Belfast sails out of there) apart from trying to justify passed /ran. Under “run”, my 11th edition Chambers gives pass (archaic) but that doesn’t seem very satisfactory to me. Thought about “traversed”, but that doesn’t quite fit, and even thought about “emitted or exuded”, but didn’t want to follow that line of thought over breakfast.

  15. Forty minutes for all but 3 and 10, which completely stumped me. Carelessly entering CATS instead of CAST for 1d didn’t help matters, but even after correcting that, I was none the wiser about the port, though the wordplay is perfectly transparent, so I should have got it.
  16. Just over my average time for each of the second round puzzles, which would suggest on aggregate that I’d have done just as well in the first.
    I thought in its own sweet way 25d was a swine of a clue, especially in the bottom right hand corner of the third competition puzzle. Adrenalin running (or indeed passing) through the system, last one in, ?E?R something to do with rivers: you’re never going to read does as anything except duz. Best guess WEAR (follows Tyne and…, erodes bed and banks, don’t it?)
    Light dawned after I’d been through the alphabet twice and not come up with anything more convincing.
  17. I think I averaged about 10 mins-ish for this on the day. D’oh moment and highlight was CANISTER, the highlight being shortly after we stopped solving, when the lovely young man sitting next to me asked me what a canister had to do with a film!
  18. I can’t remember much about this on the day except that I had to go back to it for the last few which may have been unafraid, calendar and anisette.

    It was the middle puzzle that did for me where I had Rhone for Rhine and unaccountably didn’t check the crossing clues when I couldn’t come up with a suitable answer for THE LIKE. Eventually I threw in a desperate THE MORE and put my hand up about a millisecond before Sotira.

    Took 7:57 today.

    Sue, I think that was Neil Talbot who’s no mug at this game.

  19. Found this fairly chewy, finishing after 35 minutes. I didn’t help myself by looking at the wrong anagrist for PORTMANTEAU WORD for some time.

    I wondered whether STRANRAER might challenge some of the non-natives. I remembered it from listening to the football results as a child and thinking how strange some of the Scottish team names sounded at the time. I think Inverness Caledonian Thistle might be the best.

  20. I followed my unscientific method of starting with this puzzle on the day, which in retrospect means I probably started with the easiest (I go on the basis that one will probably be comparatively easy, and one will be a stinker…not sure if it helps, mind, as there’s no way of knowing which is which until you’ve solved them all). Also, that’s not entirely true, as I had to come back for UNAFRAID, which was my last of the whole session, as it took me ages to realise I wasn’t looking for a card game or similar.
  21. Dear old Dorothy L does get a rough ride in these parts, but then I have to admit that during a brief flirtation with her a year or so back I discovered my saturation point for her novels to be precisely 2.5

    I tip my hat to anyone who has read the lot.

  22. Stranraer is no longer a ferry port. The ships for Larne and Belfast now leave from Cairnryan, 5 miles to the North.
    1. I see you are correct, Gas man Jack; it’s a few years since I passed that way myself; blog amended! Does that make it an export?
  24. For those of us who can only imagine a timed competition, this was pretty tough I thought – and a DNF before resorting to aids, I have never encountered “estaminet” or “Yalta”

    The Forfar and Fife scoreline from mctext reminds me of another classic scottish football headline when Inverness Caledonian Thistle unaccountably beat the league one leaders in the cup

    Super Cally go ballistic Celtic were atrocious

  25. Yikes – this might have done me in on the day as I stared long and hard to get the CANISTER/STRANRAER crossing.
  26. A DNF as I would never have thought of Stranraer in a million years. Nice ones elsewhere though.
  27. For those wondering if STRANRAER would pose a challenge to foreigners, well, yes! Had to look it up after wrestling with CANISTER for a long time, thinking I was looking for a wine. Everything else, though, was done in under 20 minutes, but the overall result would be 1 wrong. Regards.
  28. 11 minutes on the day, making it slightly harder for me than the other 2. Solved it bottom up as I couldn’t see anything in the top half on first read-through. STRANRAER familiar from a childhood addiction to reading every single football result in the newspaper.
  29. Happy with my completion time today; perhaps I was a bit sharper as I was able to tackle the puzzle rather earlier in the day than usual. I did not notice that it was a Championship puzzle until I came to the site, otherwise I would probably also have suffered from brain freeze.
  30. I was going to object to STRANMAER on the grounds that (a) it’s a foreign word and (b) I’d never heard of it. But then I remembered that Scotland recently voted to remain part of England, so I suppose I’ll have to let it go. I toyed with SPRING-something, taking “by the way passed back” to be PS reversed. Eventually I went for STRONVAAR, which still made no sense.

    So, the upshot and outcome is that I DNFd. Worse yet, it took me the better part of an hour to NF.

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