Times 26,051: Right Said Fred

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
The cowboy at 9A today put me in mind of Bernard Cribbins for some reason, but fortunately this was more a case of “one each end and steady as we go” than “we was getting nowhere”. Even though I wasn’t feeling at all “in the zone” last night (tired, and for some reason, unusually itchy!) I still *almost* brought this home inside of 10 minutes. As there wasn’t really anything in it that would act as a speedbump to the hardened solver, I’m expecting some impressive times from those who found the wavelength faster than myself.

Can’t remember for sure my FOI, 12A I think, and then probably 25A, at which point the SE corner fell very fast. I think the LOI was 22D, although I must have had a good idea of what it was early on: as the elements of the solution were sneakily presented in the wrong order, it took longer to parse than it might otherwise have done.

A sense of humour about a puzzle is always appreciated and this scored quite highly on the pun-o-meter, affording a couple of chuckles and shaken fists. Of note: we’ve seen 10A very recently in a Friday puzzle, haven’t we? 9A got me all philosophical about how “pellets” can be simultaneously “slugs” and “the worst enemy of slugs”, and 18A always sends me off into the reverie about whether or not it’s cognate with JURY-RIGGED. (The perils of designing things by committee, even twelve good men and true, are well-known.)

On the COD front I think I was most impressed this time by the clues which read as very natural and straightforward English but lead to a solution that’s a million miles away from the picture painted, 8D and 22D for instance, which now I think about it could be episodes in the same romantic (mis)adventure. Thank you setter for a fun puzzle!

Across
1 DAVY LAMP – old [light] used underground: DAY LAMP [“no night-light”] “eclipses” V [very]
5 WIGWAM – native American home: WIG [rug] WA{r}M [cosy, “but not right”, i.e. minus R]
9 SLUGGISH – slow: punning double def with “rather like pellets?”, a pellet being a slug, and x-ishness the state of being “rather like x”
10 PERIOD – some time: double def with “in American literature, [full] stop”
12 OFTEN – on frequent occasions: “lose head in” {s}OFTEN [temper]
13 REAR LIGHT – feature on a car: EARL [peer] “into” RIGHT [precise]
14 MAGNILOQUENT – lofty: MAG [publication] has NIL [nothing] + N [new] in (QUOTE*) [“ludicrous”]
18 JERRY BUILDER – cowboy: punning double def with “one putting up a German”, i.e. one building a Jerry
21 BUTTERCUP – flower: BUTT [behind] + R [river] in PUCE [darkish purple] “on recollection”
23 NAIVE – green: I “dressed in” NAV{y} [blue “for most part”] + E [“ending in” {pal}E]
24 UNITED – as one: U [U{nderstands} “initially”] + NITE [informally, darkness] + D [“heading for” D{awn}]
25 SEDATIVE – relaxing: (DEVIATES*) [“novel”]
26 INGEST – swallow: I [one] + G [{settlin}G “finally”] “into” NEST [its, i.e. the swallow’s, home]
27 ASSYRIAN – of an ancient Empire: S YR [second | year] “held by” ASIAN [continental]

Down
1 DESPOT – oppressor: punning double def with “free of blemish”, i.e. de-spot
2 VAULTS – double def: chambers / takes a running jump
3 LEGENDARY – fabulous: (L [line] READY*) [“to broadcast”] “filled with” GEN [information]</i>
4 MISPRONOUNCE – wrongly say: (MENU + SCORPION*) [“in a stew”]
6 IDEAL – just right: I DEAL [I | signed contract]
7 WRIGGLER – worm, perhaps: R [runs] into WIGGLER [“another worm”]
8 MEDITATE – contemplate: EDIT [change] in MATE [partner]
11 NAIL CLIPPERS – cutters: secure boats [NAIL | CLIPPERS]
15 QUEEN MARY – monarch: (NAME*) [“possibly”] in QUERY [doubt]
16 DJIBOUTI – land on the Horn of Africa: JIB OUT [sail | off] “amid” DI{n} [“endless” noise]
17 FROTHING – producing foam: THIN [fine] “to poke” FROG [amphibian]
19 RIMINI – Italian port: IR [Irish] “turned up” north of (i.e. above) MINI [little]
20 SEVERN – “long distance runner”: SEVER [cut] over N [“peak in” N{epal}]
22 EVENS – chance: N + S [“to join” hands at bridge] with EVE [girl]

48 comments on “Times 26,051: Right Said Fred”

  1. Well, I arose early, settled down with the iPad to sort out the expected stinker and 15:18 later put my LOI (Idn) so now what? Some fun clues though so thank you setter and verlaine.
      1. TLS is an acquired distaste. Listener is a completely different ballgame, apart from the one 3 weeks ago which was a complete doddle.
  2. No time for this as done in bibs and bobs. Found NAIL CLIPPERS strangely resistant. Must try and get MAGNILOQUENT into the conversation tomorrow at a 70s themed party for two Australians celebrating their 40th. Talking of whom, it’s getting quite interesting in Adelaide. Shades of ’92, perhaps?
  3. Well I’m more than happy with my 18 minutes. But like bigtone, having allocated a good hour for it, I’m rather at a loss what to do. I suppose I could always read the rest of the paper.
    Interesting to see our longest river doing double-duty in both cryptic crosswords today.
  4. First time I’ve finished each of the five weekday puzzles in under 30 minutes, but it all counts for nothing since I had WENT for LEFT on Tuesday.

    Guess we’ll get some tougher ones next week.

    Enjoyed today’s offering. COD to JERRY-BUILDER. Thanks setter and blogger.

  5. I on the other hand rather disapprove of the term “jerry builder” … When I build something, it stays built!
    Yet another easy one! I have been reduced to doing the Indy crosswords as well to help fill the empty hours. . Yesterday’s Anax was excellent
        1. I did reply to this earlier but it presumably went to the spam bin because it contained a URL. Could someone with the appropriate permissions perhaps resurrect it, please?
  6. Steady solve, with 14a from wordplay alone (only heard of grandiloquent before) and the rest clear enough. 24a and 22d my LOI, was looking for something more complicated at first. Thanks Verlaine; your Fridays seem to find you either tired or hung over, so 10 minutes is impressive.
    1. It would be nice to pretend it was just my Fridays. Children do learn to sleep like logs through the night eventually… don’t they?

      Whether I’ll ever learn to turn down that last drink of the evening is another matter!

  7. 26:52. I’m not sure if this was harder than the others this week or if I was slowed down by the after effects of last night’s office beer and pizza party.

    I’ve never heard of MAGNILOQUENT but it would seem to describe itself. I wonder if there’s a term for such words…

  8. 14m. I thought for a while this was going to be a stinker, because my first in was 23ac. But then it came together steadily.
    My last in was PERIOD… again. Fool me once…
  9. 13:45 … as I said yesterday, this was always going to be an easy one.

    The clue for 1a made me think we were in for an eclipse theme, but I can’t see anything else that really fits. Maybe there’s a fiendishly concealed Nina somewhere.

    Just finished watching/not watching said eclipse here in Cornwall. Pretty good show, and some very confused birds (I’m sure I heard a cockerel crow at one point).

    Enjoyable stuff. Not sure I had come across MAGNILOQUENT before but I shall certainly be using it in conversation down the pub.

    1. MAGNILOQUENT is the truly grandiloquent person’s GRANDILOQUENT!

      (I like to think of myself as HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPEDALIOLOQUENT personally.)

      Edited at 2015-03-20 10:24 am (UTC)

        1. The eclipse in my part of Berkshire was non-existent courtesy of the cloud cover.. I was walking the dog from 8.30 and while it might have got a bit darker at around 9.30, I would not have noticed if I had not been looking for it. What was sad though were the individuals scattered around the field with tripods and canvas stools waiting to photograph something that never happened.
          1. I got quite a nice picture of our neighbourhood buzzard drifting past the sun/moon on her way home to ‘roost’ at about 9.30am. She’s back on her usual telegraph pole behind our house now, looking quite confused (“Wow, strange night, feel like I hardly slept”).
            1. On which topic a friend of mine lost one of his hens in the garden last summer. Fearing a fox he gave up looking under the hedges and such like places. Two days later shifting a tin bath used as a rhubarb forcer there was Henny Penny alive and well and blinking into the evening sunlight. Two hours later, hen now back in the pen, it went dark. Conversation imagined as ‘blimey that was the longest night and shortest day ever known in the heniverse!’
  10. 20 mins. I didn’t find this one any near as straightforward as some of you seem to have done. I saw WIGWAM immediately and its helpful checkers meant the NE was filled out pretty quickly, but I slowed down a lot after that. I had convinced myself that 1dn was going to start with “no” so I didn’t see the obvious for ages and as a consequence the DAVY LAMP/DESPOT crossers were my last ones in.
  11. I didn’t find this quite as easy as most so far but it turned out a lot better than I had feared at first. The African state took too long to come to mind and I never heard of MAGNILOQUNT. BUTTERCUP always makes me laugh now. 45 minutes.
    1. I do enjoy that the surface for the BUTTERCUP clue is quite poetical, and meanwhile it’s constructed using someone’s BUTT…
  12. A smidge over 10 mins as the sneaky American stop gets me every time. I too am waiting for a chance to use MAGNILOQUENT in conversation. I’ll try it on Mr CS over lunch.

    Thanks to the setter and Verlaine – as for children sleeping – our Matthew didn’t sleep a whole night until he was 3 which goes a long way to explain why he was the second and last of my babies.

    1. I would not know what I know about films if I had not regularly watched Mariella Frostrup’s Little Picture Show over 20 years ago. It started at something like 0400 am.

      Edited at 2015-03-20 12:02 pm (UTC)

    2. Ah yes, he (great choice of name by the way!) sounds a lot like Clara. Second children know *exactly* what they’re doing. “Risk being a disregarded middle child instead of the youngest and cutest one forever? Not on your nelly!”
  13. Yes you did. .. and I saw it. .. and now its disappeared!
    I looked in spam but it isn’t there. . Sorry. I’m abroad and on my phone, can’t do anything about it at present
  14. Much to enjoy in this one. Particularly liked JERRY BUILDER and BUTTERCUP. And WIGWAM is just one of my favourite words.

    DNK DJIBOUTI but managed to guess it correctly from wordplay and checkers which was quite pleasing.

    Thanks for the great blog Verlaine.

    2. I’ve done it again but if it’s still not visible then you can find the details in a small post I’ve put up on my own LiveJournal blog.
      1. Thanks – will make a note of that. And for the record I found your other post too.
  16. 20m so on the wavelength today for me. Most of this went in quickly but had a few minutes pause in the SE until the African place came to mind. I enjoyed the rather tongue in cheek tone of this and the entertaining blog. Thanks to setter and V.
  17. 30 mins today: 15 to solve everything bar 14ac, then a further 15 to figure out that I’d taken an erroneous nautical tack in 11dn and bunged in FAST CLIPPERS (it does sort of work with the word play), thus rendering the solution of 14ac impossible. Once I spotted that error and rectified it I was back in business. Enjoyable puzzle to end a relatively gentle week, and a nice blog too. Thanks!
  18. Great start with the NW going in within 1 minute but then reverted to a more genteel pace coming in just under 20 mins. LOI was the MAG word where I had from wordplay all but the 1st and 3rd letters for seemingly ages before the penny dropped. Somewhat miffed because I did know it.
  19. 25 min, which is good going for me. MAGNILOQUENT was unfamiliar, but gettable (give that I knew “grandiloquent”). PERIOD seems to have appeared a few times lately – or am I imagining it?
  20. 16.35, so a kind finish to the week. DESPOT my last in: why can’t words spelt the same be pronounced the same too?
  21. I was going to lament the lack of readers of The Diary of a Nobody and say that Mr Huttle said “‘Orthodox’ is a magniloquent word”, but then I looked it up and he didn’t: he said “‘Orthodox is a grandiloquent word”. So where I saw ‘magniloquent’ I can’t remember, for I have done.
    1. I’d forgotten the “grandiloquent” quotation, but I’d still like to be included among the fans of The Diary of a Nobody.

      I left the room with silent dignity, but caught my foot in the mat.

      I’m a poor man, but I would gladly give ten shillings to find out who sent me the insulting Christmas card I received this morning.

      Splendid stuff!

  22. Very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks to setter and Verlaine though, for once, I managed to parse everything by myself. Having four kids, I have to warn you that, as they get older, they sleep through the night, but you then have sleepless nights wondering 1. When the hell are they going to get home and (later) How the deuce are they ever going to be able to afford a home.
  23. 11:23 for me, completely failing to find the setter’s wavelength for five or six minutes, but then suddenly latching on to it. Another enjoyable puzzle.
  24. Was feeling utterly chuffed with myself after completing the main puzzle for the first time ever. Then somewhat deflated to read all the comments about the easiness of it. Hey Ho, at least I knew MAGNILOQUENT.
    1. Well done! Any “easiness” is really just relative to other Times crosswords, and completing one surely places a person directly into the cryptic elite. Once there of course all of us realise that were are but tortoises compared to the hare that is the world champion Mr Magoo, long may he reign…

  25. Well done! I don’t complete many, but always satisfying. When you’ve taken all day and then someone says : ‘rather easy, 14 minutes’ I feel a bit thick. Mind you, most of the regulars here are in the premier league.
    Regards
    Andrew K
    1. Yes, sorry about that! You do need to correlate any vainglorious time bragging that goes on in here (um, er, it’s mostly me, isn’t it?) with the fact that a lot of the people doing it were in the top 30 of the Times crossword championships last year and have gotten a little bit obsessive about being able to do puzzles at high speed.

      Just completing a Times crossword in the first place puts you in a majestic elite I’m sure. Well done both!

  26. I was all the way through, but stuck with 1ac outstanding. DIVE LAMP just wouldn’t parse.

    But then, out of the dredges of a school history class in 1987, I remembered my history teacher delightedly having the opportunity, while teaching the industrial revolution, to reveal that the reason his first name was Davy was because he was a direct descendant of the inventor of said lamp. Other than that, I’ve never had opportunity to come across the term!

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