Times 25966 – use the ma, Luke

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 14:04 – though I managed to really mangle typing in my second last entry, so I’m showing up with three unforced errors – I could be an Australian tennis player!

I thought this was going to be a stinker and it’s trickier than the last few days but not quite the stinker several of us have been eagerly awaiting according to recent comments. However, I suspect the wordplay element at 22, which I can’t remember seeing in the Times, particularly in this form, may raise a few eyebrows.

It is physics, but!

Away we go…

Across
1 PARADISE: IS in PARADE
5 AT BEST: B in A TEST
8 N,AU(yellow),SEATING(chair)
9 Z(the unknown if X and Y are known),1,T(aste),S(tardom)
10 RADIO TELESCOPE: (REPLACED,OTIOSE)*
11 BLOWFLY: sounds like BEE then F in LOWLY
13 MIRACLE: L in an illegal M1 RACE
15 CANVASS: sounds like CANVAS
18 BEGONIA: BEGON(e) then A1 reversed
21 SOUL-DESTROYING: double definition
22 MASH: since FORCE = MASS times ACCELERATION, F=MA and forces can be MAS, then H. Edit: as pointed out in comments, and there was a long-running TV show about it, MASH is acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. Though I now prefer my contrived wordplay
23 TABERNACLE: (A,CELEBRANT)*
24 HEART,H
25 INTRUDES: (IS,TURNED)*
 
Down
1 PAN-ARAB: BAR A NAP all reversed
2 ROUND(circle) DOWN(hill)
3 DREW OFF: double definition
4 SATIETY: composer Erik SATIE, then T(rend)Y
5 AUGUSTINE: but not AUGUST IN W
6 BAZOOKA: AZ(London street map guide) in BOOK,A
7 SITWELL: or SIT WELL – There’s a portrait of Edith at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville – the rest of the family were Osbert and Sacheverell
12 LAST(hold out), DITCH(abandon)
14 CONVINCED: CON then VIED containing alternate letters in NeCk
16 AT STAKE: double def
17 VOUCHER: sounds like VOW, then C(all),HER
18 BIT,TERN
19 GROANER: (OR,ANGER)*
20 ALGIERS: anagram of 1’S,LARGE

37 comments on “Times 25966 – use the ma, Luke”

  3. I’m sorry about those three posts but someone else was playing with the keyboard at the same time. If somebody knows how to delete them would they be so kind. I thought this a very neat crossword, a little harder than the last three and with 1dn the best of the bunch.
  4. I made very heavy weather of this after getting off to a promising start and finished a few minutes under the hour. I couldn’t swear that I didn’t nod off a couple of times though.

    I also thought of Mobile Army Surgical Hospital at 22ac.

  5. put in ‘hash’, with little conviction: ‘has’=forces, ‘h’ for hospital. Ah, well. I’m always surprised to see ZITS, as it was definitely not a word for polite company when I was suffering from them. Spent a long time trying to think of LAST what? and SOUL whating? Liked TABERNACLE.
  6. Went for DIED OFF unparsed at 3dn. Dumb.

    I had George’s parsing of MASH, but terencep’s explanation seems much more likely. Funny, never thought of the TV show, despite being an avid fan many years ago.

    Fun puzzle. Thanks setter and blogger.

  7. 13m. I found this straightforward but made life difficult for myself by putting in a couple of wrong answers: AT MOST and CONVICTED. The first is perhaps an understandable BIFD error but the second is just stupid.
    Last in MASH. I spent a while trying to justify MAS = ‘forces’ without success, and considered HASH before remembering Alan Alda & Co.
  8. About 40 comfortable minutes.
    I love the scientific explanation for 22 but agree the M.A.S.H. explanation the far more likely.
    COD to 21 – very nice – though the anagram at 23 was neat.
  9. 22.05, so quite a bit more than a challenge, the long ones providing a significant burst once twigged.
    It just has to be M*A*S*H. I wondered way too long about how forces=mas, and then the greatest forces’ hospital of all time hit me like a brick. Brilliant clue: the H at the end just had to account for the Hospital, so where did the rest come from? And any clue that sinks Magoo is fine by me: can we have it in the championship this year?
      1. Reply 1: A c’mon. Nobody love a smartass.
        Reply 2: I know, I know (places back of hand to forehead), I tried to resist, I did, I did, but the urge was just….too strong!

  10. Found this really hard going, but got there in the end. Not helped by not knowing (remembering?) SATIE, and not really thinking of AUGUSTINE for the missionary for far too long. Also had a ? at MASH, so thanks for the heads up on the M*A*S*H front.

  11. Clearly I was in tune with this setter because I romped through this in 15 minutes with no real hold-ups.

    I love your explanation for MASH George but could I suggest a quick revision of Occam’s razor that my old maths master used to constantly ram down my throat

    70mph winds and lots of rain here overnight. Many without power – we’ve been lucky so far

  12. 12:44 .. I found this the easiest of the week. Several minutes at the end before the penny dropped on the excellent MASH (which goes a long way to making up for GROANER).
      1. Hi Jimbo. We had a day without power last week when a tree brought down power lines. And there was a lightning strike down the road a couple of nights ago which took a wall out of someone’s house during a spectacular storm. Blew up their TV, too, which seemed to be the owner’s main concern!

        Right now it’s grand. Big winds and bigger waves … I’ve been out this morning to watch the gannets and gulls zipping between the breakers and skimming the combers in a display of flying that would make an aeronautical engineer weep. You only get very localised flooding in west Cornwall, so we’re fine really. And it’s always pretty mild. After Canada, where it was -25 at our old home last night, we regard this as fine weather. I realise people in flood-prone areas might have a different view!

        1. Good news indeed. Those gulls are great provided they don’t decide to park on your roof and wake you up at some unearthly hour!

          During the summer I was part of the team that worked with the Environment Agency and Local Authority to install a proper flood watch scheme on the lower Stour. There is much people can do both to prevent flooding and reduce the effect if those measures fail. So far all is going well and we have our fingers crossed!

          1. Fingers crossed for you, too. Glad that people like you were able to be actively involved in that, and not see it just left to the government agencies. Greatly increases the chances that the scheme might actually work! Good luck.
  13. The hardest of the week so far, but not too hard, finishing in 23:35.

    Count me as another who hadn’t parsed MASH so thanks for that. My COD goes to BITTERN; I like the neat two bird reference.

  14. So the long run of straightforward puzzles continues. I was held up briefly in the NE corner by carelessly entering AT MOST for 5, without looking to closely at the wordplay. 27 minutes in the end.
  15. In the cause of full disclosure, reply No.1 is my gut reaction, too. But I’m trying to become a better person. Mixed results so far.
  16. 13 mins. I had a similar experience to several of you, inasmuch as I found it the trickiest of the week so far. I also finished with MASH after I finally realised it was a DD and I’d been wasting my time trying to justify “mas” or “has” for “forces”. I thought 23ac and 25ac were very good clues.

  17. A bit more difficult than recent offerings, but still reasonably straightforward. Some very neat clues/solutions – e.g PAN-ARAB, BAZOOKA. Fortunately, my scientific knowledge wasn’t remotely up to attempting George’s ingenious parsing of MASH, and the reference to the legendary TV show was the only thing that ever came to mind.

    I was initially mildly perplexed by TABERNACLE (23A), which seemed to be more of a straightforward definitional clue than a cryptic one. At least until I spotted the anagram.

    Enjoyable puzzle. Good blog, George.

  19. 12:40 for me so not too hard but I think I was on w/l so I can see where others might have struggled.

    I got lucky with mash, preferring mas to has as the “forces” for no good reason.

    Canvass was LOI.

  20. 53m with the last 14 on the CANVASS/VOUCHER crossing. I found this tougher than the last few but enjoyable and of course I fell for all of the beartraps already mentioned. Thanks for blog – impressed by the alternative explanation of MASH.
  21. 34:07 but thought I was heading for a DNS as I went through all the across clues without an entry finally breaking my duck on 7dn. I did finally remember the TV show but 22ac was my LOI.
  22. Not straightforward for me at all, I was at it for an hour before finally finishing with AT STAKE/CANVASS. Apparently my mind wasn’t working very well. I reached MASH the same way George did, curiously, and the TV show never entered my mind. That’s a clue about my thickness whilst solving this. COD to PARADISE, nicely lyrical surface. Regards.
  23. Oh dear, again. I had DIED OFF for 3d, which was stupid.

    Apart from that, a whisker under the half hour. Like our blogger, I was muddled over the parsing of MASH, and thought it had something to do with mass (which isn’t a force) and acceleration (which isn’t one either). I didn’t get as far as F=MA (which it does).

  24. It had to be BAZOOKA but is OS (for Ordnance Survey, of course) ever used as a metaphor for “map” in a Times Cryptic?
  25. I went reasonably briskly through all but 22ac, and then pondered over that for minutes before finally settling on HASH, on the grounds that HAS = “forces” just about held water. I completely failed to spot MASH the film, despite having seen it, and enjoyed it immensely, many years ago now. (I never bothered with the TV series.) At least – with Magoo coming to grief as well – I’m in good company!
  26. I did the F=MA thing, too, with a raised eyebrow because it is a little dodgy, isn’t it; just when I’d wound myself up to whine, I saw the M*A*S*H. Otherwise I found this tough going, so am thankful for the blog George.
  27. Isn’t “au” for “yellow” a bit too indirect for propriety? Gold the substance isn’t called “yellow”.

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