Times 25,950: Nightbusman’s Holiday

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
With minimal preamble once again due to the lateness in the day. I got home very very late last night thanks to a work do, so with both a 2 year old and a mild hangover to juggle I didn’t think it was worth even attempting exam conditions, but I did definitely solve this within the half-hour. (Compare and contrast with Enigmatist’s Guardian puzzle today, where I’m currently floundering with only three clues solved. Yikes.)

FOI was 29A, which may be my COTD as well, as I’m not sure I enjoyed anything in particular more than “French art”, though there were certainly some other tidily constructed clues. I found the right-hand side of the grid much harder than the left, and maybe it’s just me but words the likes of 9A, 18D, 24D seemed somehow to lack the timeless grandeur I normally associate with the Times puzzle? Coupled with what I thought was a slightly dodgy &lit at 15A and some weakish cryptic definitions elsewhere, it wasn’t my favourite puzzle lately, but perhaps it just suffered by comparison to the brilliant one I had to blog last Friday, or perhaps the hangover was just making me ornery!

Across
1 GAMETES – cells: MET + E [satisfied with energy] “stored by” GAS [fuel]
5 MAPPERS – planners: PPE [Oxford course] “inhabiting” MARS [another world]
9 DIS – show contempt for: DISH [food item] – H [hospital “put out”]
10 MOONLIGHTER – “one doing extra time”: MO [second] + ON [leg] + LIGHTER [match substitute]
11 TALISMAN – “that supposedly has magical powers”: TAL{e} [“short” story] IS + MAN [fellow]
12 COMBAT – struggling: MBA [businessperson] in COT [bed]
15 HOBO – HOB [rustic] + O [nothing], &lit
16 BOILER ROOM – “where the furnaces are found”: BROOM [cleaner] “goes round” OILER [ship]
18 BLUEPRINTS – “plans for the future”: BLUE PRINCE [unhappy member of the royal family] “reported”
19 BEEF – complain: BELIEF [view] – L I [“does not show” lake and I]
22 TIDDLY – triple def, a tiddly tiddly being a small alcoholic drink that could make you tiddly
23 DECLARER – announcer: RED [cardinal] “return” broken by CLARE [female]
25 HEDDA GABLER – woman in play: HE’D [“the fellow would”] + GAD [rush] “around” + ABLER [better]
27 DAI – Welshman: DAILIES – LIES [newspapers “denied” stories]
28 DIMNESS – gloomy quality: (MEN*) [“wandering round”] in DISS [East Anglian town]
29 GENESIS – book: ES [French art, as in “thou art”, “tu es”] IS “prefaced with” GEN [information]

Down
1 GO DUTCH – “avoid any financial subsidies”: GO [bash] + DUTCH [European people]
2 MUSCLE-BOUND – stiff: (BUSMEN COULD*) [“need to move around”]
3 TAMEST – least likely to thrill: TEST [match] “that’s held” AM [in the morning]
4 SHOPAHOLIC – cryptic def, “in store” meaning here a retail outlet, not the future
5 MILL – economist: MILL{ions} [seven figure sums “to be halved”]
6 PEGBOARD – “feature of card game”: PEG BORED [Margaret yawning] “we hear”
7 EAT – put away: {m}EAT [19 (i.e. beef) maybe “after starter”]
8 STRATUM – bed: MU TARTS [Greek character + bits of food] “sent up”
13 BIODEGRADES – breaks down: B [BUS “dropping US off”] + EG [for example] in (SIDE ROAD*) [“rough”]
14 FLY THE FLAG – offer support, cryptic/punny def
17 SPILLAGE – waste: PILL [medicine] “fed to” SAGE [plant]
18 BITCHED – complained: ITCH [long] “like an invalid”, i.e. in BED
20 FORTIES – “decade of new social initiatives”: FOR [beneficial to] TIES [couples]
21 FLORIN – FLORIN – “coin once”: FLORID [fancy] having D [old penny] for N [name]
24 GAYS – “members of minority group”: GAZE [look] “to be heard”
26 DAM – restraint: MAD [angry] “upset”

39 comments on “Times 25,950: Nightbusman’s Holiday”

  1. About half of this went in quickly then the other half took about twice as long, taking me to about 45 minutes. PEGBOARD particularly slowed me as I was looking for it to begin by sounding like Maggie. I also wanted a river for my ‘Oxford course’. The biggest hold up was with GAYS, my LOI. Easily parseable but _A_S are not helpful crossers.

    Sounds like today’s Guardian crossword is a toughie, but I like a challenge so I’ll print me one off later.

  2. Average puzzle that went in mainly from definitions/checkers. Was also surprised by DIS as it seems like such a … Sunday Times cryptic kind of word. Didn’t know HOB or the first meaning of TIDDLY.
  3. 16m.
    Quite a lot of unfamiliar stuff in here. I think I’ve come across HOB before, for instance, but it’s a bit obscure. I’ve no objection to words like DIS, but I’d have spelled it like the Norfolk town that was also only vaguely familiar. The drink meaning of TIDDLY wasn’t remotely familiar, and I find that I never knew that Peggy was derived from Margaret. I don’t think I’ve come across MUSCLE-BOUND before either.
    Add to all that a hasty BEACHED at 18dn, which fits the wordplay but not the definition, and SIKH at 24dn, which almost works, and it’s a wonder I finished at all.
  4. A shade over the hour, in 3 separate sessions, but at least I completed it – and without aids!
    Actually, I quite enjoyed this one,though thanks for parsing 5, 15 and 25 which had me stumped.
    An unusual number of “beds” today – is the compiler trying to tell us something?
  5. 31 mins +. I enjoyed it but was a bit thrown by seeing S-R-T-M for 8d. Without reading the clue, I knew an answer but an eyebrow was raised before being relieved when STRATUM popped up.
    1. Yes, I thought we were in Private Eye country for a while, especially in the company of stiff and, dare I say, gays.
  6. 20 minutes but with NOES instaed of gays (being positive I hoped the yesses/ayes would be in the majority) which left me an unparsed Robbie Fowler’s sister Hedda for the play lady. I’m far from convinced that rush and gad are synonymous. My iPod Chambers has that usage as obsolete and has it as the rush here and there.

    I had no idea how hobo worked so thanks for the enlightenment. Calling the CDs weakish is putting it mildly.

    Harrumph.

  7. I’m another HOBO hater I’m afraid – that was a bit unfair, being so obscure – and as others say, a CD really has to be good to be worth the candle. There were still quite a lot of nice bits though, so still had fun. Over the three hours…

    😀

  8. 39’08. Tricky. Hob=rustic? Florid as fancy is skating it. And isn’t it generally diss not dis?
  9. All my times this week have been between 35-45 minutes, so a very consistent week. There was nothing particularly tricky here, so I feel I should have been quicker than the 43 minutes it took me. I didn’t know HOB, so thanks to blogger for the explanation. I agree it’s not a great clue, but I found the puzzle as a whole enjoyable enough.
  10. …that a TIDDLE of whisky might make you (go for a) TIDDLE. Didn’t then think it through.
  11. 50 minutes. I thought this was going to be a beast but after about 20 minutes of minimal progress I suddenly got into it and all but a few of the remaining answers went in quite quickly.

    I didn’t know HOB as a rustic and of the usual sources, only Chambers has this menaing, but it is also in the two-volume SOED. TIDDLY as a drink or dram was also unknown; I took the first definition as ‘wee’ meaning small/tiddly.

    PEGBOARD is a term I have never used with reference to card games despite many years of playing cribbage. To me it’s a material used to display items, especially album covers in record stores in the 50s and 60s.

    1. You said it for me Jack on PEGBOARD – I’ve never heard cribbage players call it that
  12. Also unfamiliar with “tiddly” = drink. I spent some futile time being too clever by half looking for “-isists” in 5a thinking the course was the Isis. I’m quite certain any comment containing the word “bitch” would be asterisked on the Club Forum. 16.44.

    Back to the Enigmatist which I’d left to marinate for a couple of hours. Still a lot of blanks in the top half. Glad to know others are struggling.

    1. You’re whetting my appetite for this Enigmatist. With work slow (and working from home) I might have to hit the printer shortly.
  13. Like others found this slightly unsatisfactory for all the same resons. Not difficult – 20 minutes after golf – but too many weak spots, especially HOBO
    1. I certainly used to think of it as having two esses, but I think “dis” is more commonly seen these days…
  15. Mm, I definitely raised an eyebrow at “stiff” as a definition for “muscle-bound”. I guess it kind of sort of makes sense, but I had to squint…
  18. 17:36 … It’s not just you, verlaine, and thank you for articulating my own thoughts so elegantly (and diplomatically).

    TIDDLY and HOBO both went in “without full understanding”.

    Galspray: you weren’t the only one to consider it. Thankfully, I reconsidered.

  19. About 25 minutes, ending with TIDDLY, “without full understanding”, as someone said above, and because I think those meanings of the word are all UK-isms, so not overtly hanging around in my vocabulary waiting to be used. On the other hand, MUSCLE-BOUND is pretty common over here, or at least it used to be. Same comment for HOBO as others. Regards.
  20. I was also torn between TIDDLE and TIDDLY but thought the latter as a single word fitted better. HOBO from definition.

    Galspray could be on to something – this could be a considerably different puzzle with SCROTUM at 8d, MUPPETS at 5ac, DUE at 27 and FARTERS at 20.

  22. A bit slow, but hampered again by the persistent Border Terrier, so some excuse.
    For those who haven’t attempted the Grauniad today, it’s a cracking puzzle that I completed after a long struggle, but with two solutions unparsed.
    Back to the Times, I also thought that ‘hobo’ was weak, and almost lacked a definition rather than being a convincing &Lit.
    Many thanks to verlaine: as I know from the distant past, a two-year old is much more distracting than the aforementioned pooch.
  23. 10:28 for me. I don’t recall coming across the drink TIDDLY before; and, like you and others, I wasn’t too taken with the weak &lit at 15ac (HOBO).
  24. I’m afraid I found Enigmatist’s puzzle rather dreary, at least when compared with Times puzzles (both ancient and modern)!
    1. I wonder if in attempting to create a tour de force one automatically precludes the possibility of so doing.
    2. Mm, I love the man in person, and I do appreciate a challenge, but I definitely found myself toiling with this one at times as opposed to actually enjoying…
  26. I spent almost 9 hours on this one, although 8 of those were due to a change in time-zone from Cambridge to Malaysia.

    However, despite about 50min of actual effort, I DNFd thanks to 25 across – never heard of HEDDA GABLER, nor she I. I got the HED easily enough, and probably should have got DAG/GAD, but I was side-tracked by thinking that HEDDY was a name (as in Lamarr, though it turns out she only has the one “d”), and it call came unglued.

    Apart from that, I found this one quite enjoyable. Hadn’t encountered HOB in the sense of “rustic”, and nor would I have said that a hobo was a rustic type, but nothing else fit the checkers. “TIDDLY” for drink also didn’t feel right, but there was a song called “Let’s have a tiddly at the milk bar”, I believe.

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