Times 26,060

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I’m standing in for jackkt today, as he’s temporarily indisposed, but, let us hope, back soon and 100%. Happily, I was right on the wavelength with today’s offering, and stopped the clock at 12:10 after another pleasant and straightforward puzzle which didn’t require too much expert knowledge – a bit of classics, a bit of science, a bit of history, and a plant so obvious even I couldn’t get it wrong.

Across
1 CARBONIFEROUS – CAR, B{ritish}, [IF in ONEROUS]; the name of the geological era reflects the coal which was laid down during the period.
8 AMMO – {m}AMMO{n} gives what you need to load your gun, Mammon being best-known as that particular money you can’t serve as well as God.
9 ACCOUNTANT – ACCOUNT(=report), ANT(=social worker). Sometimes the requisite social workers are bees, but today we have ants.
10 PENTAGON – PEN(=author), TAG(=game), ON(=cricket side).
11 PHOEBE =”FEE”, B{lond}E.
13 DOWN AT HEEL – (WONTHEDEAL)*.
16 OPUS – O{ld}, P{iano}, U.S.
17 WARM – WAR(=hostilities) + {actiu}M; the battle where Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, though that knowledge isn’t actually required here.
18 NIGHTSHADE – NIGH(=”near”), [S{on} in (DEATH)*].
20 BEAR UP – BEAR(=”huge carnivore”), UP(=”ahead”).
22 AMATEURS – (ASRUTEAM)*. Since the game of rugby union turned professional in the mid-nineties, this works as an &lit., on the basis that an amateur team would be poor (at least comparatively speaking).
24 CRICKETING – CRICK(who, along with Watson, published the first model of the structure of DNA), + [TIN(=”cash”) in E.G.]; “particularly sporty” as in “playing a particular sport”.
26 AGUE – {V}AGUE; an ague can be a shivering fit or the illness which causes it.
27 MILITARY CROSS – 1 LIT(=”one flaming”) in MARY, CROSS(=”hybrid”); Mary =”nursery gardener” as per the nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?”.
 
Down
1 COMMEMORATE – COMME(=”as” in French), M{onsieur}, ORATE(=”speak at length”).
2 ROOST – ‘ROOS, T{repidation}; bats retire to their roost by day, birds by night. A nicely topical surface to this clue so soon after the World Cup, just in case any English cricket fans had forgotten about the existence of Mitchell Starc/Johnson.
3 ORANG UTAN – RANG(=”called”) in OUT(“openly gay”), AN(“article”).
4 INCENSE – double def., one verb, one noun.
5 EQUIP – i.e. in the same way as we have e-mails, and e-fits and e-commerce, a joke online would be an E-QUIP.
6 OSTROGOTH – (SO)rev. + R{iver} in TO GO, + TH{ursday}. The Goths began by settling the steppes around the Black Sea; after defeating the Romans, the (western) Visigoths eventually headed west into Spain, the (eastern) Ostrogoths into Italy.
7 SIN – SIN{g}.
12 BLUNDERBUSS – BUS(=”transport provider”) in BLUNDERS(=”silly mistakes”) with the definition “years ago, one fired”; the blunderbuss was an early firearm.
14 NUMERICAL – NUM(National Union of Mineworkers), ERICA(=”woman”), L{arge}.
15 LETHARGIC – LET(=”allow”), H{usband}, (CIGAR)*; “supply” here being the adverb meaning “in flexible fashion” rather than the verb meaning “provide”.
19 GLAZIER – G(force character as in G-force), LAZIER(=”less disposed to work”).
21 PLEAT – L{itres} in PEAT(=”fuel”).
23 ERATO – cleanER AT Office; the Muse of lyric poetry appears regularly in crosswords, mostly thanks to being easier to fit into a hidden word clue than Terpsichore or Polyhymnia.
25 RAM – double def., “pound” as the verb, and “butter” reflecting the anecdotal tendency of male sheep to butt other creatures in an aggressive fashion, especially if they live in Crosswordland.

35 comments on “Times 26,060”

  1. 31 minutes, helped by having BLUNDERBUSS recently (in a Concise?), when I managed to write ‘blunderbust’. Last in the two 1s stopped, as the setter would say, by AMMO. Enjoyable workout.
  2. On a bit of a roll, if two in a row counts as a roll.

    Tim, re 2dn, a third tall Mitch was named in the Ashes squad today, but he bowls a bit slower, and with the correct arm.

    2. I suspect England would like to be facing a lot of Mitch #3’s bowling, but will have to play unexpectedly well if they manage to be still batting when he gets thrown the ball…
  3. Many thanks for standing in, Tim. As expected it was a trying and tiring day and I’m not quite sure what it achieved, but it was helpful not to have blogging duties on my mind.

    This one turned out to be quite easy with only a careless mistake and 24ac taking me a minute or two over my 30 minute target. The error was writing PLAAT at 21dn which made 24ac impossible to solve until it had been corrected.

    The thought behind 22ac struck me as a bit anomalous considering RU was an amateur sport until 20 years ago but I suppose it would be true enough today, and I know in crossword terms that’s not the point anyway.

    BTW, there’s one typo in a curly bracket at 8ac.

    Edited at 2015-03-31 05:23 am (UTC)

    1. Sorry to hear you’ve got a bit of business going on – best wishes and hope all is good.
  4. Just under the 30 minute mark – not helped by biffing CARBOHYDRATES for 1a and thinking for ages 9a began with ANT.
    Without doubt COD to 22a – I’m comfortable with RU being described as “amateurs”.
    BTW, Rugby Football only became established as a separate game from Association Football in the late 1860s when Blackheath objected to the proposed rule change banning the kicking of opponents’ shins. I refrain from commenting any further.
    1. . . . although to this day, the Rugby Club in Blackheath is called Blackheath FC, rather than RFC. Blackheath, for whom I have turned out a couple of times in the distant past, is also one of I think two current clubs who were founders of both the FA and the RFU.
  5. Made heavy weather of this over 19.19, and bunged in a typo for good measure. I simply couldn’t get going at the top, set myself in tricky solve mode, and only realised when the answers began to flow in at the lower levels that I was probably in the wrong mode.
    Mind you, I remain convinced that there’s some excellent cluing here, with complex assembly instructions well disguised in smooth surfaces: CARBONIFEROUS, ORANG UTAN< OSTROGOTH and MILITARY CROSS are star examples, but there are others.
  6. I arrived home at almost 1 a.m. after seeing Future Islands and The Vaselines play a show in faraway north London, a few pints inside me, and sitting down was surprised and delighted to find myself doing the concise in 1:44 and then the cryptic in 7:58. Not much to be proud of in needing heavy doses of controlled substances to achieve one’s best performances! Especially when I see a presumably undoped Magoo achieved one of his “but isn’t that impossible?” times at the top of the table.

    Seemed like a very charming puzzle, through the haze…

      1. I think there’d be a riot if people went to a Future Islands show and he didn’t! He’s got to pace himself to last out a full 90 minutes, mind you.
  7. 14:15 … seems almost a shame that this was one of those which half solved itself as you went along, as there was some really nice stuff in here, not least ORANG-UTAN

    I’m another who did a cartoon double-take on seeing Magoo’s time (for those without Club access, he was below the 4-minute mark again).

    Regarding 2d … shall we just tell the Aussies to keep the ashes for a couple of years, save them a trip?

  8. 17:15 so a bit harder than yesterday but still on the quick side. I raised a smile at EQUIP.

    BTW, does the dead persons rule only apply in the weekday Times? There was reference to someone on Sunday who is unequivocally alive.

  9. 9 mins. This felt harder than yesterday’s but I was a minute quicker. Go figure. I did the same as Z8 and went back and appreciated some of the clue constructions post-solve. PENTAGON was my LOI.
  10. 10:54, but with an inexplicable DOWN AT HEAL, which I didn’t even spot when I checked my answers. Pfft.

    Edited at 2015-03-31 08:29 am (UTC)

  11. Quite a reasonable puzzle I thought that was fun to solve if never stretching

    Hope Jack is back to full strength soon

  12. Just recovering from the Sunday grapple with The Dean, so this one was welcome relief and very enjoyable.

    Quite a distinctive style with several complex constructions with lots of moving parts: found that a bit off-putting initially, but warmed to it.

    ORANG UTAN excellent, I thought.

  13. 23 minutes, without trying to beat any records and while sipping the coffee. Could have been a 4 x Magoo if I’d tried. Science, cricket, French words, accountancy, granddaughter’s name at 11a, it seemd like a personalised puzzle, and very enjoyable too.
    I have no idea Verlaine who ‘Future Islands’ or ‘The Vaselines’ are but I suspect I’m glad I missed it.
    1. Overwrought Baltimorean new wave and sunny Scottish power pop respectively. Perhaps not for everyone but the combination did seem to recharge my solving abilities!
  14. Gentle puzzle with some nicely crafted clues; just over half an hour with time to savour the journey as well as celebrate the outcome. Didn’t know OSTROGOTH but the word play was clear. Thanks setter and blogger, and best wishes to Jack.
  16. Another puzzle on the easy side, but very enjoyable. I wasted time wondering why an osteopath might live on the steppes.
  17. I am not used to going sub-30 so a sub-20 for me is a PB by almost 6 minutes – delighted, and even more so as my previous PBS have been met with mass reports of sub-10 minutes and howls of “too easy” across the TFTT board – so very pleased. Magoo’s time is utterly mind-boggling. COD to 27a, LOI inexplicably EQUIP
  18. 12:59 with an eyebrow raised at 9: not all auditors are accountants any more than all accountants are auditors.

    There were quite a few charades where the construction differed from initial expectations, for example at 1 ac it was British, (provided in difficult situation) rather than (British provided) in difficult situation and at 16 we had old (American on piano) rather than (old American) on piano.

  19. Confess to not parsing everything as I went along, and it took far too long for the penny to drop for 26a. Some very nifty constructions I thought.
  20. 29m so not a hard one for me. Enjoyable but I echo the raised eyebrow over accountant/auditor combination. Lots of pleasant clues here though and 5d my pick despite question mark.
  21. Two short breaks at work, but with no quibbles at all, very solid crossword I thought, and I don’t recall seeing OSTRAGOTH in a puzzle before and hope to see it again.
  22. Just under 12 mins which must be a PB (I need to make a note for future comparisons). Must admit to biffing for England today though. I use an iPad and I think I would struggle to get under 4 mins with the answers in front of me!
  23. I started this one so slowly that I thought it was going to be a 20-minute (or longer) job, but after struggling with the first six clues I suddenly seemed to find the setter’s wavelength and finished in 7:57 (still over 2 x Magoo, but only just).

    Nearing the finishing line, I had another horrid senior moment with 24ac, completely unable to remember the DNA guys – despite having rushed out and bought a copy of The Double Helix the day it was published. (Sigh!)

    An enjoyable solve, for all that.

  24. I’m still a day behind, but got there in 26min, so I’m getting close to my target of 3 Severs (or 6 Magoos).

    Nice to see Crick (the altogether more pleasant of the two) making an appearance – almost makes up for yesterday’s jpw “analogue”. Sadly, Jim Watson will probably be eligible for inclusion ere long.

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