Times 25949 – and it seems to me, you lived your life

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 16:29, but I can’t say I’m in tip-top solving or blogging form. There was a screening of a remaster of “The Great Dictator” at a cinema with a very good bar attached to it, followed by dinner and drinks at another bar. So I’m home, it’s past midnight, I’m happily toasted, and here we go. Wheeeeee!

I think I’ve got most of it figured out, but I seem to be missing part of the wordplay at 26 across and I may be overthinking 14 down, so let’s see what happens.

And away we go…

Across
1 PROFLIGATE: PROF (chairman, particularly of an academic department) then L, 1, GATE(way out)
6 ATOP: or AT OP
10 PENGUIN: PEN GUN around 1. It is now time for the one on your television set to explode
11 A,STARTE(r)
12 REPLETION: (REPTILE)*,ON
13 A,DIE,U
14 CHINA: CHA around IN
15 NARCISSUS: C in (RUSSIANS)*
17 FIELDFARE: (REF,FAILED)*
20 TYLER: T, then RELY reversed – I expect this is referencing Wat Tyler, though it could possibly be early US President John Tyler
21 LIBRA(ry)
23 ROTHERHAM: OTHER,H in RAM
25 NOONDAY: NOD, AY containing ON
26 NOISILY: Hmmm… well I see SI(l)LY but I can’t quite see how BOW=NOI – hive mind to the rescue? Edit: and hive mind did rescue – the bow would be #1 (No.1) in the boat
27 SIKH: SI(c)K,(healt)H
28 EDWARD LEAR: EDWARD BEAR with a new start for BEAR
 
Down
1 PAPER: double definition
2 OENOPHILE: sounds like O,FILE around ENO(English National Opera)
3 LAUREL AND HARDY: both are evergreens
4 GENTIAN: GEN then I in TAN
5 TRAINER: TER(m) surrounding RAIN
7 TARSI: TAR(preservative) then IS reversed
8 PRECURSOR: RECURS in POR(t)
9 STRAW, IN THE WIND
14 CUFFLINKS: I think this is CUFF(slap) then L for G in GINKS (an odd person, hence buttons) making it an &lit. Open to suggestions though. Edit: and now I know a new word – LINKS is German for left
16 SYLPHLIKE: (HIPS,KELLY)*
18 ARAYED: sounds like A RAID
19 ESTONIA: EUSTON without the U, then A1 reversed
22 BROOK: the sister may say that the BRO’s OK
24 MAYOR: ROYA(l) reversed up to M

55 comments on “Times 25949 – and it seems to me, you lived your life”

  1. LINKS is German for ‘left’; I don’t know how I know that, since I don’t speak German, but trust me.
    1. Kevin, if you were from the south east of England and not NY then on all the roads leaving the channel ports you would see signs advising drivers to..
      TENEZ LA GAUCHE
      LINKS FAHREN
  3. I was wondering about the PROF in PROFLIGATE, and still am a bit: TO husband would not be profligate, but husband? I also couldn’t parse LIBRA, having forgotten about RY as ‘lines’ and trying to remove non-existent L’s. It’s got to be Wat; Pres. Tyler was too late for the Revolution, although he did side with the Confederacy in the Civil War (a fact I just found on Wikipedia; I think I can safely say that none of us knew this before). I was hoping to be informed of how NOI=bow; I’m glad anyway that I’m not alone in being puzzled. And why is a STRAW IN THE WIND ominous? The only time I’ve seen the phrase in recent years, it was anything but.
  4. Equally puzzled by Kevin’s worries. “Chairman” is very loose, especially now that we have professors of administration who are not a scholar’s bootlace — the lot of ’em put together. But let that pass. Assumed “husband” to be the verb: (to) use economically (hence not profligate). Seems fine to me with or without the “to” as it need not be the infinitive.

    STRAW IN THE WIND: guess this can be ominous as in the following from the Sunday Times, via Collins: “But the Bishop, a subtle man who knows a straw in the wind when he sees one, is worried about the Government backtracking”.

    On German roads, Sich links halten is a frequently seen sign. It prohibits golf in the immediate area.

    Thanks to Rednim for explaining NOI as “No.1”. A double underline beneath that one.

    I read 1dn as: (paper) clip, (paper) round, (paper) tiger. A kind of “fill in the blanks three times” clue.

    Edited at 2014-11-20 06:40 am (UTC)

  5. This was very enjoyable and lively and I was never stuck so I’m surprised I still managed to doze off at one point and lost track of my exact solving time. But anyway I was all done in 45 minutes which was not too bad.

    I had the same unknowns and slight misgivings as have been identified by others already but also needed a checker to decide on the second word in 9dn where I thought the expression was “straw TO the wind” rather than “IN” it. A Google search on my version returns 764K hits whereas the answer has only 203K, not that that necessarily proves anything.

    I was amazed with my luck at 23 where I realised I was looking for a town beginning with R – the only checker in place at that stage – and immediately thought of ROTHERHAM which I then found fitted the wordplay.

    Edited at 2014-11-20 06:37 am (UTC)

  6. 70 minutes for a rather odd puzzle for all the reasons given already. Never heard of the straw expression and cluing via the German word for left is surely a Brücke too far?

    Sikhs are clearly subcontinentals du jour.

  7. surely a chairman is a prof because many profs have chairs. “the ebenezer scrooge chair of economics”
    1. Not all of them do. Some don’t even have PhDs. They’re senior administrators who award themselves that title thereby watering down the meaning of said. See above.
      1. All the usual sources have “chair” = “professorship” so the setter has nothing to answer for here.

        Edited at 2014-11-20 08:33 am (UTC)

        1. Indeed s/he doesn’t. But the assumption that because all chairs (in that sense) are professorships does not mean that all professors hold chairs. (I shan’t mention any problems there may be with the addition of “-man”.)
          1. Maybe I’m being dim, but I can’t see the clue is suggesting that as it’s written the other way round to fit with the dictionary definition.

            And I don’t really see that gender comes into it either, other than the setter could just as easily have written ‘chairwoman’ (or ‘chair’ on its own) but chose not to. It doesn’t make the clue less valid.

            Edited at 2014-11-20 09:03 am (UTC)

          2. I can see why this would be a sore point, and I sympathise (though this isn’t confined to academia — ‘title creep’ is everywhere, from Vice Presidents who make the tea to Sir this, Dame that and so-and-so MBE did quite well at sport one summer) but I don’t think the setter is offering a general proposition. Perhaps our minds work differently, but when I see “chairman” for PROF I don’t think of all professors; my mind summons up an image of a particular Prof, a character in a tiny drama penned by the setter.

            Anyway, I do hope you’re writing a satirical novel about the brave new world of academia. It’s always been fertile ground for satire but it sounds like things have worsened enough to warrant one more. I’ll buy a copy.

            1. Until a few years ago in my job there were four possible titles, the lowliest of which was ‘manager’. The other three all had the word ‘director’ in them.

  8. Found it tricky (same queries as above), and resorted to a solver after well over an hour to get the last couple. Didn’t help myself by confidently putting in ‘stick’ at 22dn, making LIBRA and NOONDAY impossible…
  9. 14:54 .. with no quibbles.

    My contentment derives partly from ignorance (I’m not going to tell you how I parsed NOISILY — but if it works it works) and partly from thinking that it really doesn’t matter for crossword purposes whether all professors have chairs or not.

    Some nice quirky things going on here, like ‘one getting into the red?’ for OENOPHILE. I liked the PENGUIN but “Slim hips Kelly wiggles” stole my heart.

    Edited at 2014-11-20 08:46 am (UTC)

  10. 21’30. Enjoyable. If someone who occupies a university chair is or is very likely to be a professor, that’s all you need. I think Slim Hips is Velma Kelly from ‘Chicago’ – what a show.
    1. Agree about the show Joe but I think you and I saw different productions. I assumed Sotira meant Gene though he was a bit chunky. Matthew seems unlikely.
  11. A slow start but finished in a shade over 17 minutes. I agree there some incidental delights here, though some escaped me while solving, like ‘slim hips Kelly’, but ‘in vain’ sent me the wrong way and I thought of ‘Sinophile’ before remembering the other crossword type of red. Can’t see any problem with ‘straw in the wind’ as a suggestion of things to come aka omen.

    Edited at 2014-11-20 09:49 am (UTC)

  12. I found this a straightforward but interesting 20 minutes

    I had no quibbles other than at 9D where “perhaps” at the end of the clue would have removed the doubt. The phrase simply means a portent of things to come which might but don’t have to be ominous. Can’t understand the issue surrounding “prof”.

    Not the best of times for ROTHERHAM to appear in the puzzle!

  13. I think I liked this one, completing it in 10.45 and creeping into Jason Magoo territory (wasn’t he in the Avengers?) I especially liked the Only Connect clue for PAPER, because it felt like a refreshing (but perfectly fair) way of cluing.
    No 1 as the bow seemed obvious to me, though I only saw it having got SI(l)LY first.
    I did wonder whether Edward Lear would mind being regarded as a minor literary figure, but he would probably just sigh and say “such, such is life”. Maybe he’d also be mollified by the Nina appearance of his Owl and his Ink (“I once was a bottle of ink…”) immediately above his entry.
    1. I thought exactly the same thing about him – if he’s so minor how come we remember so much of his verse? As for his watercolours, they are sublime. My father had one which my mother sold when he died. A furious girl in New York, told her mother we really must talk… Thanks for pointing out the nina, which I missed as usual.
      2. While I was away at boarding school or university, my mother used to blithely give away books that I particularly liked, but nothing to compare with an Edward Lear watercolour. Ouch!
        1. Not quite the same anguish but my loss whilst at university via a generous mother was a number 10 Meccano set!
        2. Oh Tony. Thanks for the empathy. It hurts to this day. It was a landscape in Greece that hung in our dining room but my mother thought it was boring. I had an exchange with David Kerr Stout, who you probably remember, on the subject. Before WWII my father was a very young don at Magdalen (where StoutDK was later economics fellow)and befriended an elderly fellow who was Darwin’s nephew, Lear’s work having been admired by the great naturalist. The old fellow left his worldly possessions to my father which were virtually nothing but books except for the Lear. Alas alas.
  14. Another DNF! I think I must be getting into the red too much with consequential loss of the little grey cells. Some easy write-ins such as 12, 14, 17, 21 and 3 should have made this easy-peasy, but I failed to get 4 and 7. Some nice clueing, and congrats to the blogger for a stellar performance given his self-confessed condition.
  15. 15:46, but with a careless PRECURSER. I really enjoyed this puzzle so I’m particularly annoyed with myself. I didn’t mind any of the stuff others have mentioned and like sotira I thought ‘slim hips Kelly wiggles’ was quite wonderful and worth the price of admission on its own.
  16. . . . but like keriothe with a stupid PRECURSER. I also played around for a while with ROCHESTER where there is a by-election today but it was soon clear that it was not to be. An enjoyable solve.

    I thought that the Editor had banned ninas except on very special occasions, but I guess that this mininina (nice word!) was acceptable.

  17. Started the QC journey as a newbie with no. 1 – usually managed about 6 clues – and yesterday reached a personal milestone of COMPLETING Mon, Tues, Wed… 3 in a row for the first time.! Euphoric!! Don’t care about the times – it usually takes three sessions, with my brain preferring betw 10-11pm for some strange reason! Newcomers take heart…..
    But this is a massive shout out to Nick the novice, jakt and all the other regular bloggers, without whose help, knowledge, encouragement, and mordant wit, I would never have persevered. Thank you all.
    Pam
    1. As no one else has said it, well done, you! I don’t know how you can solve at that time of night. I think I would struggle with the Mirror’s old ‘Tea Break Quickie’ any time after 8 o’clock. I wonder if there’s some evolutionary reason why we have night owls and larks. But well done. More milestones await …
  18. The bottom half went in OK and then I stared for a bit until the boss interrupted (will he never learn!) and I said that I appeared to have lost the ability to solve cryptic crosswords today. He left the room and I suddenly saw what was going on at the top and finished in a tiny smidge under 14 mins.
  19. Needing a three-letter acronym for an opera company, I figured they would have called it Royal something, like everything else, so ended up with ORNOPHILE. Was wondering how reds related to birds. Oh well.

    Didn’t know FIELDFARE either, but it looked slightly more likely than FIELDRAFE. Didn’t know ASTARTE, but the wordplay was clear. Also didn’t parse the NOI in NOISILY.

    Must strive to know more stuff. Thanks setter and blogger.

    2. Hi Galspray,
      Just curious, where is your avatar picture taken? I “know” (I think) you’re from Perth, always assumed it was Cottesloe with the Norfolk pines… but perhaps South Freo? In the blog of today’s Austalian crossword you mention Gough died, claim him as a hero, which definitely sounds more Freo-ish than Cott-ish.
      Cheers,
      Rob from Perth
  20. I didn’t time myself, but finished in less than an hour, which is very good for me.

    Last two in were PROFLIGATE (I always want to put an H between G and T) and ATOP.

    For some reason I was convinced that 3d was Little and Large, but luckily didn’t write it in as couldn’t parse it.

    How can the “in” before “vain” be justified in the clue to 15ac?

    1. I read it that the letters C + RUSSIANS are rearranged in (the name of this) vain man i.e. Narcissus.

      Edited at 2014-11-20 01:58 pm (UTC)

  21. Not quick, about 40 minutes, ending with NOISILY because I didn’t parse the “NOI” either. I shrugged and put it in. I also learned the German for left today, unknown before. George, not to be a pain, but ARRAYED needs another “R”. Regards to all, and welcome to the newcomers.

    Edited at 2014-11-20 08:22 pm (UTC)

  22. Not very fast for me today.Failed to get oenophile despite being one of them at time of solving. However, that may explain my time! Managed to get 14D without being a German speaker. I live in Felixstowe and whenever I leave town, there is a sign saying (as previously mentioned) TENEZ LA GAUCHE & LINKS FAHREN. However, our sign also adds KOR TIL VANSTER.
    I always knew that memorising that road sign would come in handy and so it has albeit approximately 36 years later!
  24. 14d had to be ‘cufflinks’ but I did not know the German word: I tried to make sense of ‘left’ giving the ‘L’, but that left me with ‘inks’ which I couldn’t parse. I also tried to work golf into the solution to justify ‘links’, but that didn’t work either, so I just shrugged and put in the answer.
    Like z8,I also appreciated the ‘Only Connect’ type clue at 1d: not a double or triple definition, but a nice departure that I haven’t met before in a crossword.
  25. 11:06 for me after another ridiculously slow start. I eventually got going, probably helped because (like crypticsue) I found the bottom half a lot easier than the top half.

    An interesting and enjoyable puzzle. The only clue I had my doubts about (and which held me up a little at the end looking for other literary figures that would fit) was 28ac (EDWARD LEAR). I expect galspray’s explanation (“literary figure for minors”) is right, but it didn’t entirely convince me at the time, and I still feel slightly uneasy about it for some reason.

  26. Fifty-three minutes for me. I couldn’t see what held me up, but by 40min I had only the south-west corner. Then I realised that I was trying to solve this thing stone cold sober – a quick couple of glasses lubricated the gears and the last three quarters went in quickly. Three quarters of the puzzle, that is. The last three quarters of the bottle went in more slowly.

    I missed some parsings (NOISILY, CUFFLINKS), and didn’t know either ASTARTE or TYLER. No problem with prof=chair. Liked BROOK and SYLPHLIKE.

    Like others, I was surprised to see Lear described as a “minor” literary figure. I suspect that is correct, though, in equating “minor” with “for children”.

    Tomorrow sees me departing for Malaya. Assuming that they don’t take me via Ukraine, I hope that my online access will work once I’m there.

  27. I had ‘Smoke in the wind’ for nine down, seemed more ominous to me and also fitted better with the clue ‘one that should be sucked’, but then again I am a smoker. Anyway after doing really easy cryptic crosswords in other papers here in Australia I think I’m aiming way too high to expect to understand The Times ones, but I am at least brave enough to give them a go. I must confess to only managing to get 7 answers right and then checking the answers to the rest. I worked on this one for 2 Days (how’s that for embarrassing?)

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