Times 26059 – Welcome, British Summer Time!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 31 minutes

Music: Brahms, Symphony #2, Monteux/Vienna Philharmonic

Yes, the US and the UK are back to five hours difference, so I’m able to print and solve the puzzle at 7 PM every night. However, as it happens, today I went out to a dinner following a concert and didn’t print it off until 8 PM anyway. I was quite dismayed, too, as I couldn’t solve any of the first dozen-odd clues I looked at, and had to begin my work at the bottom of the grid.

The bottom half did prove to be quite easy, while the top was indeed a bit tough. There are some clever clues here that require a little thought to see how they work, if you’re not just madly plopping in likely answers. The vocabulary was not obscure, and little general knowledge was required. I have a few usage questions that I will research as I write the

blog, but generally everything is relativley straightforward.

Across
1 AUTOBAHN, A + U TO(BAH)N, a letter-substitution clue where BAH replaces W. No indication that this is a German term is given, the definition is simply ‘motorway’.
5 BANTAM, BA([eate]NT + A.M. I was a bit surprised at this, since one primarily thinks of bantams as fighting roosters, but I suppose they must have hens, too.
10 TOM, DICK, AND HARRY. MOT backwards + DICK and HARRY. Now obsolete, replaced by Liam, Noah, and Ethan.
11 OPEN AIR, OP + EN + AIR.
12 LEARNER, L + EARNER, where ‘bringing in’ turns out not be an insertion indicator.
13 PADDLING, PADD(L)ING.
15 TIMES, T(I’M)ES, i.e. the Times Educational Supplement.
18 OVERT, OVERT[ones], a very clever word-removal clue.
20 CREOSOTE, CRE(O[n]S[h]O[w])TE, if you can remember where Heraklion is.
23 WATTEAU, WATT + E + AU, much better than the terrible homophone they used a couple of years ago.
25 PLATOON, PLATO + ON.
26 TEAR ONE’S HAIR OUT, humorous cryptic definition.
27 HAGGLE, HA(G,G)LE.
28 SWANHERD, S + WAN + HER + D.
 
Down
1 AUTHOR, A + U + THOR.
2 TEMPERATE, TEMP (E) RATE.
3 BRIGAND, BRI(G)AN + D, where ‘a bloke’ just turns out to be a man’s name.
4 HIKER, double definition, a clue type not favored by this setter.
6 ATHWART, AT (H) WAR + [argumen]T.
7 TURIN, TUR[n] IN.
8 MAYORESS, MA(YORE)SS.
9 ANALOGUE, ANA + LOGUE, sounds like ‘log’. A very specific use of a rather general term.
14 INCLUDE, IN + C(LUD)ED, i.e. Dec upside-down. The Law Lord is also known as Your Washup – see the Pickwick Papers.
16 METRONOME, anagram of MORE, NOT ME.
17 DOGWATCH, DOG + W AT CH. My LOI, couldn’t think of ‘dog’ for a while.
19 TREFOIL, T(REF)OIL.
21 STATION, anagram of IT’S NOT A, as in a ‘sheep station’ or such in Australia.
22 UNITED, hidden in [gordonsto]UN IT ED[ucates].
24 TWANG, T(W[idespread])ANG.
25 PSHAW, P + SHAW, my FOI.

60 comments on “Times 26059 – Welcome, British Summer Time!”

  1. Pretty straightforward start to the week. I hadn’t been able to parse OVERT, so thanks Vinyl.

    Looking forward to Ulaca dropping by.

  3. … start to the week. SIngle cup of coffee job. Had to wait post-solve for the missing “ones” at 18ac. The only slight hiccup.

    (Gallers and Ulaca: Pity India and SA didn’t get to play off for 3rd place. Now that would have been a contest. Unlike You Know What.)

  4. Just under 20 minutes but marred by an online typo at the ATHWART/HARRY crosser. Pretty straightforward stuff where the trickier cryptics could be biffed. TEMPERATE – not a word you meet every day – was my last in.

    I’m not a fan of self-referencing clues like 15a – similar use of ‘our’ in the Guardian is very common…and annoying – because I believe crosswords work their magic best when they are timeless (hence I support the dead persons only ‘rule’). I hope it’s just a one-off weekday puzzle wise.

      1. Yes, very nice, thank you. Back to nature trekking in the Burmese jungle. Anything important happen while I was away?
    2. I like that kind of thing, no doubt because the Guardian was my only crossword for very many years. As long as the puzzle has a title which includes the name of the publication, all the context you need is right there on the page.

      Does the “dead persons only” rule really ensure timelessness? I suppose it does weed out the possibility of annoying pop-culture references… however I dread to think how many puzzles will become instantly dated if our glorious monarch ever shuffles off this mortal coil (longe absit)!

      1. I’m just an old curmudgeon really, but it all gets a bit much for me me when we move from assuming that everyone who does the puzzle is a reader (hard to justify in the Internet age, especially given their – generous – provision of free puzzles) to setters referencing not just themselves but other setters.

        Just a pet hate – like “news” programmes such as 60 Minutes dedicating a programme to one of their own…

      2. I am not sure what this sad event will change. The other ER has been coil-less for over 500 years.
        1. I suppose so. Does VR ever still make an appearance (gracing the middle of a CHEVRON perhaps)?
          1. Don’t think that I have ever seen VR but then have not seen WR, CR, JR, RR, MR or even AR and SR either. GR of course.
    3. The ‘our’ in this case is also wrong, since the TES hasn’t been in under the same ownership as the Times for ten years.
  5. Back to trying to do the crosswords first thing in the morning instead of on the stroke of midnight – and I have to say that my poor sleepy brain didn’t like it much, especially not with the clocks having so recently gone forward, adding insult to injury. 18m, with the last 5 spent on just a few clues: ANALOGUE, the DOG part of DOGWATCH and most significantly CREOSOTE, where I completely blanked on the geographical location of Heraklion, fixating on it being close to Pompeii. Which is of course Herculaneum. Five years studying the classics at a top-flight university, and all for naught…
      1. Not quite as top-flight as that/much more top-flight [delete according to prejudice]: Cowley Poly and proud!
        1. I was on the Iffley Road Poly myself – but Greats for me lasted only four, not five, years.
          1. Ah yes, that was and I presume is the conventional timescale. I took a year out in the middle, for various unlikely reasons, to make it the full lustrum…
    2. Ha ha, for once at least going on a lads’ holiday to Crete > having a classical education.
      1. I’d definitely trade it all in for an expenses-paid holiday to Crete right about now…
  6. 1ac was my FOI, so no problem getting started today. All but two solved within 30 minutes but I got held up at the end by LEARNER (why, FGS?) and ANALOGUE. Incidentally I think “girl” is “Anna” and is part of the homophone.

    Off for a stressful day now, and thanks to Tim for agreeing to cover for me tomorrow

  7. Not able to access the club this morning, so should have done it on paper, but opted to do it on the Times site instead. Alert readers will note that my extravagant donations to the Murdoch pension charity obviously continue unabated.
    Decided I didn’t like the blue and white format, nor the fact that it goes ping when you’ve filled all the squares no matter what letters you put in, and congratulates you on completing the crossword. Note to neutrinos: just keep your finger down on the A key and you can complete the puzzle in (say) 7 seconds.
    The crossword itself I did in around 11 and a bit minutes (offscreen analogue timer), confirming my answers by coming here. I did like “distressed” (sic) at 26, decided that bantam hens had to exist as well, and otherwise trundled in the answers in a pleasant and gentle puzzle.
    Herself and I are off to participate in a new BBC quiz today: if we do well enough I’ll tell you which one.
    1. Well, good luck, you two.

      Can you at least give us a clue … is it the sort where you get dunked in gunk if you get a question wrong? or something a little more cerebral?

      1. No gunk, but lots of brain-testing puzzles and games, for some of which which crosswording is good training. Embargo on saying how well we did, but we expect to be broadcast in May or September this year in one of the BBC2 6/6.30 quiz spots. Will give a heads up nearer the time.
        1. Looking forward to seeing the Bearded Wonder and the Slavic Superwoman in action.
        2. Awesome! Looking forward to seeing it, too (still think it would have been better with gunk, though).
  8. Seemed an anodyne puzzle but worth it all for last one in Swanherd, a good word to end on. 15.18.
    1. This reminds me that for a while I had SWANSHED in there, which I think is a great name for a place to keep your swans in.
  9. 10 mins. I’m not always on form on a Monday morning but I didn’t have much trouble with this one, although I confess that I’m another who biffed OVERT. I also raised an eyebrow over the defintion of BANTAM, but as a few of you have already noted there must be female ones. ATHWART was my LOI.
  10. Another one here unable to access the club – again. The chat line is busy so there may be quite a few of us. Upsets my early morning routine. Yes this was a temperate start to the week. The clock on the mantel needs re-winding so I’m not sure how long I took but I also did today’s Guardian on the same cuppa (and I agree with some of the comments above on their puzzles).
  11. Also had to solve on the Times site, where there doesn’t seem to be a timer. Somewhere around 9 or 10 minutes for this.

    Unreasonably pleased with myself for remembering WATTEAU from last time out, so him I bunged in with barely a thought (sorry, Jean-Antoine, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you).

    In my childhood, I remember someone near us used to bring round boxes of bantam eggs, which I’m guessing didn’t come from fighting roosters.

    TOM, DICK AND HARRY is fun, and there’s a nice, neat surface to TWANG.

    Edited at 2015-03-30 10:23 am (UTC)

  12. 11:22 which is a PB for the iPad era. I was slightly held up in the SW corner which prevented a hoped for sub 10.

    Has anyone ever heard the word PSHAW used? I’ve only ever seen it in crosswords.

    1. Have done, but only because I hang out with a bad crowd. Even then I feel it was used ironically.
    1. Reasonably straightforward, the only hold ups being ‘PULL ones hair out’ and 6dn – I always have trouble with a- words like this. We used to have Bantam hens and their eggs are small but delicious.

      Edited at 2015-03-30 12:04 pm (UTC)

  14. Thought this was as easy as usual Monday fare, only biffed OVERT. Bantam eggs are de rigeur hereabouts. MY chemistry degree memory made me frown at ANALOGUE – you need one to be analoguous of another, not sure you can have one on its own… but maybe I’m picky, OED says
    Chemistry A compound with a molecular structure closely similar to that of another:e.g. thioacids are sulphur analogues of oxyacids.
    The CC was down for me for a while this morning but seems OK now.
    1. Chambers seems to bring this slightly closer to the world outside chemistry, but not much.

      That which is analogous to something else, eg protein substances prepared to resemble meat

    2. Thanks for the reference. This does seem to show though that the clue is inaccurate, since, for instance, thiosulphuric acid is an analogue of sulphuric acid, but neither is an organic compound.
  15. 8:17 here, mostly parsed in real time.

    Bantams are certainly well-known as egg layers in the poultry-keeping world whose fringes I’ve occupied for the last few years (just waiting for the last two hens to qualify for mention in the Times crossword so that I can turn that part of the garden over to something else), just smaller than normal chickens and layers of smaller eggs, as one might expect given the physics of tubes and such.

  16. 38 minutes, with the top half taking about two thirds of that.
    10a reminds me irresistibly of the classic Goldwynism:
    You’re going to call the baby William? Every Tom Dick and Harry is called William!
  17. Not much to say other than this took about 8 minutes, and was probably less diverting than the blog and associated comments; but a straightforward solve does not, of course, necessarily make for a bad puzzle, and this one was fine. Despite editorial claims that it is not, and never has been, a policy decision to assign especially easy or tough puzzles to particular days of the week, I’m feel it’s somehow right when there’s a gentle Monday, a challenging Friday, and a lucky dip the rest of the time.
    1. The rumour that Friday tends to be on the tricky end isn’t especially borne out from my experience of blogging it… I’m always hoping for a real tussle and I often end up disappointed! It’s not that I don’t make heavy weather of puzzles elsewhere in the week…
  18. About 40 minutes for me, although the dang clock on the ipad is useless as it includes times when you have the app open, even if the ipad is shut down when one is otherwise engaged. Couldn’t get started in the top at all, but the bottom half slipped smoothly in. A bit of a nautical theme as well with dogwatch and athwart making an appearance. It was athwart that got me going in the north, and I have done enough dogwatches (first and second) in my time for that to come quickly to mind.
  19. A gentle 19 mins and, as an inveterate biffer, I’m proud to say I parsed OVERT prior to entry.
  20. No real difficulty, but, like some others, biffed OVERT. Took about 30 mins. Thanks to setter and blogger.
  21. Yes, but ethanethoil, or ethyl mercaptan, is an analogue of ethanol, and both are organic compounds, so an analogue could be an organic compound. Our setter is not a scientist, methinks. ‘Similar compound’ might have been a better definition than ‘organic compound’. That’s the trouble with science – it’s scientific.
  22. Just 29 minutes for me, close to my best time and a far cry from my usual hour. But I found it very amusing and not too easy, full of clues with the usual insertion and other indicators not meaning what they usually mean (LEARNER for example), and with a lot to chuckle about. I would have been slightly quicker if I hadn’t spent the last minute wondering whether ANALOGUE could really indicate a chemical compound or whether, as so often, I was just making up a new word.
  23. Did this late last night and had question marks next to TIMES and OVERT so thanks for explaining those ones. I wonder how SWANHERD became a profession worthy of a term.
  24. 9:37 for me, feeling tired after another busy Monday, and not really on the ball.
  25. 8:36. Didn’t get time for this yesterday. No-one will read this but I have to record my time for my geeky spreadsheet.
  26. I’m here a day late, which I blame on the clocks changing.

    25 minutes for me, which is good by my low standards. However, I have to take serious issue with ANALOGUE. An analogue (even in the limited sense relating to chemical structure) is not an organic compound. Some analogues may be organic (that is, containing carbon), but others are not. The clue is as wrong as if “isomer” or “molecule” had been clued as “organic compound”. Silane (SiH4) is an analogue of methane (CH4), but is not an organic compound. For that matter, molecular nitrogen (N2) is an analogue of molecular oxygen (O2); and hydrogen sulphide (H2S) is an analogue of water (H2O), yet none of them are organic compounds. I can live with the paucity of clues relating to science and technology, but when they do appear I expect the Times to at least get them right. Ooh, don’t get me started.

Comments are closed.