Times 26012

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
50 minutes with time lost getting started and at the end where I was stuck with most of the SW corner missing for far too long. In between, this was a steady and enjoyable solve with only a couple of less than familiar words and meanings. There doesn’t seem to be a lot that needs saying so I’ll keep things quite brief today.

{deletions}

Across
1 ETCH – {f}ETCH (get)
3 IMPROPERLY – REPOR{t} (story) reversed inside IMPLY (suggest)
9 CHINWAG – W (weight) inside CHINA (country), {do}G{ma}
11 PROBLEM – B (bishop) inside ROLE (part), all inside PM (head of government)
12 STATISTIC – ST (saint), then IS inside ATTIC (Greek dialect)
13 NIECE – {I}N{s}I{d}E{r}, CE (church)
14 MARCEL PROUST – CRAM (crowd) reversed, E (energy), then PRO (expert) inside LUST (desire)
18 PLAIN SAILING – I (one) inside PLANS (schemes), AILING (in a bad way)
21 PLUMP – L (left) inside PUMP (quiz)
22 SACRAMENT – Anagram of MAN REACTS
24 REFRAIN – REF (arbiter), RAIN (drops)
25 PRESENT – Double meaning, the second as in PRE-SENT
26 ANTITHESIS – A (area), TITHES (taxes) inside SIN (wrong) reversed
27 SLUR – Hidden

Down
1 EXCUSE-ME – C (about) + USE (exercise) + {swa}M, all inside EXE (river). It’s a dance in which one may ask to take another person’s partner. It’s often preceded by ‘Gentleman’s’ or ‘Lady’s’ to indicate whose turn it is to do the asking.
2 CHIVALRY – CH (Companion – of Honour) replaces the first letter of {r}IVALRY (competition)
4 MIGHT – Sounds like “mite”, the smallest Roman coin, with reference to the widow who contributed her mite in St Mark’s Gospel.
5 RAPACIOUS – RA (sun god), then AC (account) inside PIOUS (devout)
6 PROGNOSTICATE – Anagram of TIPS ON RACE GOT
7 RELIEF – RE (referring to), LIE (fiction), F (frequency)
8 YAMMER – YAM (vegetable), MER{it} (deserve). I didn’t know this word as a cry of distress, only as talking loudly.
10 WHITE ELEPHANT – TEE (support) inside WHILE (although), H (hard) inside PANT (long). The “white elephant stall” is a regular feature of village fetes, bazaars and the like, unwanted household items having been donated in order to raise money.
15 PUISSANCE – UP (reversed), anagram of UP IN CASES. I didn’t know or had forgotten this showjumping event.
16 SIDEREAL – SIDE (team), REAL (not fanciful)
17 AGITATOR – A (ace), ROTATI{n}G (turning) reversed
19 SPARTA – SPAR (dispute), T (time), A (article)
20 BUFFET – Double meaning
23 CAPRI – CAP (covering), {g}RI{d}

40 comments on “Times 26012”

  1. Had a bad feeling about this one when a pass through the acrosses yielded only SACRAMENT, but somehow things picked up. I needed all the checkers to get 1d, which I put in reluctantly before recalling coming across it here not too long ago; a DNK otherwise. PUISSANCE, my LOI, definitely a DNK; I toyed with ‘pleasance’, which I did know, but which isn’t an event, until the correct answer forced itself on me. Never did parse 2d, so thanks for the explanation. Courtesy in competition from a Republican; what a concept.
  2. Similar to Kevin, slow start but picked up speed. DNK PUISSANCE, or maybe I did, as I managed to convince myself it was a word. EXCUSE ME is a dance known only to me from crosswordland.

    All pretty straightforward. Thanks setter and blogger.

    Jack, I think 26ac is TITHES inside SIN A reversed. Not that it matters much.

    1. “Excuse Me” is not a particular dance. It comes from the phrase “Ladies’ Excuse Me” – a dance in which the girls were allowed to go up to the men and ask them to dance.
      1. The dictionaries all disagree with you.

        So does the clue, which says “dance” (as you do, above); but doesn’t say “particular dance” which you incorrectly claim is where the clue is wrong.

        33 minutes including preparing and eating lunch, pleasant solve.
        Rob

        1. I think you’ve missed the point here, Rob. Beau_nash was replying to Galspray’s comment which appeared to suggest that an “Excuse-me” is a specific style of dance. Beau_nash was merely saying it’s not any particular dance (which it isn’t, because it could be a waltz or a foxtrot or a polka etc). He wasn’t arguing against the clue.
  3. Well … I quite liked this puzzle. A chacun son égout! For example, I thought 1ac was a great instance of the setter’s art. Clear COD for me. And any puzzle that can combine WHITE ELEPHANT with MARCEL PROUST must be a winner.
  4. 57 mins, slowed down by going one worse than my Monday confrere and putting ‘glass ceiling’ at 18. PUISSANCE dredged up from watching all those show-jumping programmes on the Beeb introduced by Peter West and his pipe in the late 60s/early 70s.

    Edited at 2015-02-03 06:43 am (UTC)

  6. Got there in the end. But like someone above I had a bad feeling when I only got one across clue. Eventually everything went in ok except the SW corner that took forever. I don’t know why: BUFFET and PLUMP are obvious in retrospect.

    Took just shy of an hour or maybe just a little more. I didn’t really time myself accurately.

  7. 17m. I also started slowly on this, and never got beyond steady progress. I enjoyed it: it managed to be challenging without resort to excessive obscurity and without being over-taxing. Just what I needed after a long flight.
    It took me a while to remember it, but I knew PUISSANCE from watching some show-jumping on TV for about an hour on one occasion years ago. I can’t remember why I did but my abiding memory is of something that appeared to be a family competition for people called Whitaker.

    Edited at 2015-02-03 07:09 am (UTC)

  8. Like some above, thought at first this was to be a stinker, but once I had 10d and 8a it all opened up and I finished with LOI SIDEREAL in 21 minutes. Thanks for parsing 1d, which was write-in once the M was there but messy to explain.
    A splendid puzzle IMO.

    Those horsey Whitakers are Mrs K’s cousins, keriothe, go carefully.

    1. My comment wasn’t intended as a judgement on their character! But their preponderance in this particular event was remarkable. There was a German chap who won one of the events (which may or may not have been the PUISSANCE) but this was very much against the run of play.
  9. Pleasant enough, I thought. EXCUSE ME as a dance has come up before somewhere and it stuck, although it was pretty obvious from the crossers.
    Thanks setter and jack.
  10. An excellent puzzle of the guess first, work out why later variety – I don’t think I got any, apart from the hidden SLUR, directly from wordplay. I determined only to click submit once I’d understood everything, so my 18.42 reflects time trying to unravel the knots in CHIVALRY, made harder by assuming the definition was all of “Courtesy in competition”.
    Perhaps hidden by the obscurity of the word, PUISSANCE was a brilliant clue, the wordplay accurately describing the process. Happy memories of Harvey “fingers” Smith (definitely not a Whittaker) urging his straining horse over the ever-increasing wall, and thinking “wouldn’t it be better if Harvey put someone skinnier in the saddle instead?”

    Edited at 2015-02-03 09:18 am (UTC)

  11. Most of this is very straightforward with obvious definitions and “solve by numbers” cryptics. A smattering of good clues with 1A the best in my view and no poor offerings

    I recall the horse thing involving a wall that gets higher and higher with each progressive round – all very strange

  12. Oooh dear… can’t believe so many giving 1ac COD, when I got it wrong. Had my version (dock) been right, I may well have given it COD. Anyway, I was so sure that it was correct that I didn’t think to double check it, and this led on to the absolute certainty that the river in 1dn had to be the Dee, so I ended up with a very odd-looking (and clearly incorrect) dance.

    Ooops…

  13. Isn’t it strange that so many of us started off sluggishly before it picked up? Is there some deep-seated reason behind it? I had precious few on my first pass, but then it all clicked and took me about satisfying 50 minutes.
    In Henry V Pistol says “Trail’st thou the puissant pike?”. I didn’t know what it meant then and still don’t.
  14. 35 min: same experience as others – pretty hard to get going and then held up in SW for no obvious reason.
    PUISSANCE COD – agree with z8b8d8k8 on quality of &lit
  15. Missed out on YAMMER (never heard of this word) but other than that all present and correctly parsed – albeit a lengthy and tough grapple.

    My introduction to the EXCUSE-ME was as an impressionable 10 year old at a Butlin’s holiday camp near Brighton. Parents allowed me to stay up and watch the grown ups at play with the ballroom dancing. I was enthralled when one bloke did not enter into the spirit of the dance and planted a savage right cross on another guy who had tapped him on the shoulder, and an all out brawl ensued.

  16. A truly horrible 55 mins. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind but I didn’t enjoy this one at all. I spent the last 20 mins or so in the SW with a bad case of brain-freeze and 21ac, 24ac, 26ac, 19dn and 20dn all unsolved until REFRAIN opened it up, and the PLUMP/SPARTA crossers were my last ones in. In retrospect there wasn’t anything that should have held me up for too long, although I found it a very dry puzzle and that may have put me off. Bah humbug.
  17. 23:15 … started off really fast then slowed down … no, just kidding. Same as everyone else. Tricky one to find a way into. My first in were CHIVALRY and RAPACIOUS, then only really got going in the SE.

    PUISSANCE is a lovely &lit. The setter can be rightly proud of that one. But I agree with Nick —SLUR is delightful.

    Thank you to keriothe for the entertaining demonstration of the fine art of backpedalling re the good family Whitaker. That’s the problem with this site — you never know exactly who you’re talking to!

  18. I found yesterday’s far too easy, so it was nice to have something with a bit of meat in it. 1a (LOI) and 26 were very good clues, as were a few others, including a nice anagram at 22. A pleasant 40 minutes.
    I hope the setter will happily ignore some of the condescending comments above.
  19. Me too with the slow start/held up by the SW corner in the end. A second over 12 minutes.

    Pleased to see others had the same experience – I did wonder whether it was because the cryptic grey matter was as cold as the rest of me.

  20. 22:12 suggests that I struggled with this and it certainly felt that way.

    I Biffed Proust, plain sailing, antithesis, the dance and agitator but relied on wordplay to give me sidereal, where I wandered up several blind alleys including deciding that “team of stars” was Real (Madrid).

    COD to the well-hidden SLUR.

    I don’t wish to appear condescending but I think I’m entitled to express my opinion that I, too, found this rather lacking in sparkle, despite the handful of very good clues already mentioned.

  21. I did bung in 5 or 6 acrosses on the first pass (FOI CHINWAG) so getting started was not an 11ac. Got stuck for a while like most in the SW. I use an iPad to solve and finger trouble had me enter EXCUDE ME which meant I spent many minutes trying to justify DUALISTIC for 12ac which was my LOI when I realised the error of my ways. About 30 mins today.
  22. Another one requiring two sittings, finishing in a cumulative 39:00. It was the SW corner which did for me at the first pass, but on the second visit I saw SPARTA straight off and the rest fell in about 2 minutes.

    I know Excuse Me from the rather fine ballad ‘A Gentleman’s Excuse Me’ by Fish (ex of Marillion).

  23. 21.09. I agree with penfold, a dullish number with two or three gems. Got out of jams for 27: a lovely clue. What surfaces are for. I haven’t often caught a puissance event on the box but when I have it’s been mesmeric.
  24. 47 minutes for this. I don’t feel such a slow-top now I realise that plenty of other people found it hard. I took ages to just get started but once I got going with WHITE ELEPHANT the rest came slowly but steadily. Ann
  25. Once again I can only hope that one of tonights clientele kicks me, to save the embarrassment of having to do it myself. 1ac – EACH. No no no. Normally, I try to leave my stupid slips for theatre.

    Apart from that, 56 minutes, of which I’m not proud.

  26. A fellow solver assured me today that I could probably achieve a PB solving this puzzle. I think it was a deliberate wind-up as I found it a good challenge and was pleased to complete and parse in a respectable time.
    Like others, a slow start, then quicker once I had some crossing letters in, but, unlike some others, I found it a satisfying experience.
  27. 10:09 for me, eventually getting going after another slow start.

    I parsed 15dn (PUISSANCE) as having “event with obstacles raised” as its definition, with “up and in cases wrecked” as the wordplay indicating an anagram of UP + IN CASES. I rate this a very fine non-&lit rather than a not-quite-so-good &lit.

    1. Yes, your parsing is better so I’ve amended the blog. If only I’d understood what the event involved I might have identified ‘raised’ as part of the definition.

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