Times 26,063: If Solving Be The Food Of Love

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I entered into debate earlier this week about the generally held opinion that the Friday puzzle is, on average, harder than the rest; today’s did nothing much to help convince me that this is the case. There was maybe a slight toughening-up of the required vocab and a couple of thornier clues (6D springs to mind), but also at least half a dozen gimmes scattered around the grid, which meant that this wasn’t a hard one to get going with. I finished in an entirely-comfortable-for-me time of a little under 11 minutes. Compare and contrast to that stinker we were confronted with on Wednesday!

FOI was 12A, aided and abetted by the fact that I’ll probably be going to Glastonbury Festival this year for the first time, so it’s been on my mind a fair bit recently, as seas-of-mud-related panic starts to set in. LOI was 24D for no particular reason that I can see, just a case of ending up in the SE corner. 6D as already mentioned gave me pause, being on the TLS-y side, and 16A is pretty obscure as old Greek towns go even for a classicist, isn’t Boeotia well out in the sticks? Though, ahem, the answer does appear as a key feature in an excellent Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode called “Darmok”, which I highly recommend.

Other than that, some interesting cluing of first and last letters caught my eye: I quite liked “last thing x needs” and “first requirement for x” but I did see someone grumbling about “ending with x” in the comments, probably with some justification. Anyway I had a good time overall, thanks setter!

Across
1 POP ART – “modern design”: POT [vessel] “incorporating” PAR [standard]
4 SCIMITAR – “cutter”: SCAR [damage] outside I MIT [one | American university]
10 RENDITION – performance: RIT. [slowing musically] around END [finish], then I ON [one (must get) on]
11 STEAM – cook: S [“ending with” {supper}S] before TEAM [eleven]
12 TOR – “a feature of Glastonbury”: ROT [rubbish “thrown around”]
13 EXPATRIATED – deported: EXPATIATED [talked in detail] about R [king]
14 SOMBRE – dour: MB [doctor] “probing” SORE [inflammation]
16 TANAGRA – old Greek town: “held by” {Spar}TAN A GRA{nd}
19 RISKIER – R I SKIER [runs (by) one | sporty type going off-piste], semi-&lit
20 TURING – mathematician: TURNING [going round] minus N [“working out” an unknown number]
22 CELTIC CROSS – religious symbol: CELTIC [football team] + CROSS [angry]
25 PAL – china: PAL{e} [“mostly” light in shade]
26 PARSI – “one sort of believer”: PARS{on} [vicar “not getting on”] with I [one]
27 IMAGINARY – dreamy: I MARY [island | girl] “imbibing” A GIN [a drink]
28 SPANKING – punishment: SPAN KING [cross | monarch]
29 JERKIN – old leather jacket: JERK IN [contemptible type | wearing]

Down
1 PURITY – innocence: PITY [compassion] “encapsulating” UR [biblical city]
2 PENURIOUS – poor: PEN [writer] + RU [the game “being up”] with IOU’S [admissions of debt]
3 RAISE – lift: RASE [to bring down] “must cross” I [one]</i>
5 CONSTITUTIONAL – double def: permissive / “path may be used for this”
6 MISSIONER – MISER [one such as a certain Silas (i.e. Marner)] “going outside” SION [Jerusalem], &lit
7 TRENT – river: R [right] inside TENT [campers’ accommodation]
8 REMEDIAL – intended to put things right: RE MEDIAL [engineers | at the centre]
9 SIMPLE FRACTION – “maybe a half”: (COMPLAIN IF REST*) [“is disturbed”]
15 BAILIWICK – “where magistrate held sway”: BAIL [bar] “imposed on” I WICK [one | town in Scotland]
17 GANGPLANK – board: GANG PLAN [group | scheme] + K [“last thing” {wor}K “needs”]
18 PRECEPTS – rules: P [“first requirement for” P{upils}] + (RESPECT*) [“different”]
21 PLAY ON – double def: exploit / “umpire’s directive not to come off the field”
23 LORNA – female: LO RNA [behold | a sort of acid]
24 SWINE – a nasty person: S WINE [second | drink]

42 comments on “Times 26,063: If Solving Be The Food Of Love”

  1. A very pleasant 12 minutes. Tell me I wasn’t the only person who couldn’t get “momble” out of his head for 14ac? (In the spirit of which, I also seriously toyed with SLIME at 24dn before thinking better of it…)
  3. Very straightforward with no queries or quibbles. Pleasant enough puzzle.
  4. Managed to complete this without too many alarms and excursions. Thank goodness TANAGRA was a well-signposted hidden!

    Thought TURING was neat, as was PARSI.

    Sorry if I’m being dense, but struggling to see how constitutional = permissive. Appreciate any clarification – thanks.

    1. Well, constitutional is clearly “permitted by to a constitution” and I guess “permissive” is fairly interchangeable with “permitted” in some contexts? It did give me a moment’s pause too, but what else could it have been really…
      1. Hmm. Agree could not have been anything else (I slammed it in early in the piece) but, in my capacity as a somewhat irritating seeker after truth, I still wanted to get to the bottom of the thing.

        I remain unconvinced that permissive is (fairly) interchangeable with permitted. I’m not usually a pedant (and I appreciate the latitude that keeps the wheels of Crosswordland circulating smoothly) but this is still perplexing me.

        Permitted path would have worked perfectly (from my perspective)- constitutional=permitted no probs. But, the setter (presumably) deliberately selected permissive rather than permitted: given the precision and intellectual rigour of these puzzles, there must be some thinking behind this. I’m curious as to what it is.

        1. Chambers gives ‘permitted, optional’ for ‘permissive’. Collins gives ‘not obligatory’ but calls it ‘archaic’. And ODO gives ‘allowed but not obligatory; optional’. So I think it’s just a usage you and I have never come across.

          Edited at 2015-04-03 11:37 am (UTC)

          1. Thanks Keriothe – much appreciated. I did have a hunt in my (very old) Chambers but did not spot this.
            1. The term permissive path is in wide use here in the Peak District so provides a better surface than permitted path – which isn’t. It’s where landowners have no statutory duty to but allow access. Maybe the term has sprung up since you departed these shores when right to roam became the rage?

              Edited at 2015-04-03 03:36 pm (UTC)

              1. Thanks Chris. I must have roamed in all the wrong places, as I did not encounter this.

                “Right to roam” is just crying out to be an answer in a cryptic!

                Countryman’s charter presented by Tories visiting capital – so we’re told…

                Edited at 2015-04-04 02:20 am (UTC)

  5. 13 mins. I agree that this was a fairly straightforward puzzle, although I’m another who was glad TANAGRA was clued as clearly as it was. As far as the Darmok Star Trek episode is concerned I have to say that I wasn’t sold on it, but only because don’t see how a species that only communicates in metaphors could have had the scientific wherewithal to build computers, let alone get off their home planet. PRECEPTS was my LOI.

    Nick – I saw constitutional/permissive as synonymous with “allowable”.

    1. Just as I come to the Times puzzle from the Guardian, so I came to TNG from Doctor Who. And if you want to enjoy Doctor Who in any way whatsoever, you have to be a dab hand at not caring whether anything makes a lick of sense deep down…
  6. 16,30. Permissive as permitted is a new one on me. There was let as hire the other week I think. Soon the Times’ll have underestimate as overestimate and any number of Contrary Marys till lend as borrow is sanctioned and we all end up with a lot fewer words, thinking less but loving Big Brother. I know, I know…
    1. I fear it’s already too late: even grammar, the basis of all education, baffles the brains of the younger generation today. For if you take note, there is not a single modern schoolboy who can compose verses or write a decent letter.
      1. As a teacher of English in secondary schools and still going, I can tell you there are precious few English teachers now who know the workings of what used to be the language’s grammar.
          1. This notion that the language ain’t what it used to be is so true it’s been around as long as language itself. My post is a quotation from Piers Ploughman
  7. A few problems along the way so my time went up to 48 minutes. My first error was writing MUD at 12 which seemed a good idea before I paid sufficient attention to every word in the clue. Not sure I have met MISSIONER or TANAGRA before and 6dn was confused by wondering if “Marner” could be fitted into the answer. At 20 (my LOI) I thought of “touring” as “going round” and was left wondering how zero could be described as “an unknown number”.

    Edited at 2015-04-03 09:43 am (UTC)

  8. Same thoughts as Jack on the TURING clue, except I was wondering how the letter O could be described as an unknown number. One of the reasons I stick to crosswords rather than assay sudokus.

    As so often I was slow on clues within what may optimistically be called my areas of expertise, with the hidden Greek town appearing only after I’d wasted time excavating my Classical know-how, and CELTIC CROSS proving infuriatingly slow as I considered only teams in England and Italy, not altogether without justification, it must be said, given that Scotland is ranked below Cape Verde.

    Edited at 2015-04-03 10:12 am (UTC)

  9. Like Jack I got distracted by Marner in 6d. I knew the Tanagra figurines but was vague about the place they came from. I confidently entered “benchmark” for “bar” in 15d imagining a bench of magistrates in a Scottish town called Mark. That took a bit of sorting out. Speaking of sorting out, yesterday’s horlicks has now been fixed on the club site. 14.29
  10. 16:18. Same comments on others on Marner, touring, TANAGRA and permissive. And I initially put in SLIME but fortunately I remembered that I wasn’t really convinced. Enjoyable puzzle.
    Based on my solving times Fridays are not harder than average, but Mondays are easier.

    Edited at 2015-04-03 12:06 pm (UTC)

  11. 27:01 to finish a week of successful solves. First time in a while I’ve managed that so I’m happy.

    When I had completed all but the MISSIONER/TURING crossers I risked becoming fixated on the down one being MESSIANIC for no good reason other than it fitted. Thankfully in this instance I thought my way out of this cul de sac when the mathematician sprung to mind and I passed this particular Turing test.

  12. I was expecting a harder puzzle than this as it’s Friday and a bank holiday in the UK. But it only took half an hour, about average for me, with the same hold ups as others – Marner, touring, permissive etc. Have a good Easter break, everyone.
  13. This seems dodgy to me too. As does Permissive, which is not in any way a synonym for constitutional, surely, where permitted would have been no worse a clue. But the rest of it is very elegant.

    Momble should be a word!

    1. Anon – if you aren’t aware, “momble” is a word that was coined on this site to mean an entered answer that fits the wordplay for a clue that is not the correct answer and not even an actual word.
  14. Not fast today, 35 minutes and confess to having to check up on Tanagra although it was clearly a hidden word’. In spite of living in Greece for 4 years (for 6 months of the year) I’d never heard of it and now see it is a pretty small place, noted for some antiquities (figurines) rather than its modern existence. Otherwise no quibbles except echo the query over permissive = permitted. I liked TURING having recently watched the v.g. movie about his life and persecution.
  15. Some may not be familiar with the expression “permissive path”, which is a (foot)path used by permission of the landowner, rather than by right. Ramblers, hikers and the like will feel at home here.

    Jim, near Cambridge

  16. 30m untroubled and steady solve. I was fine with the ‘permissive path’ being the place I might be allowed to have my constitutional, though to assuage the pedants perhaps a ? At the end might have helped! This from a questionmarkophobe as well. I enjoyed the blog which explained why my BIFD answers were right – the mathematician and the girl for two.
  17. Solved with a lovely cup of tea and Hot Cross Bun after getting back from a Turner to Dickens Walk (Margate to Broadstairs).

    All that fresh air must have assisted the grey matter – 10 mins – add me to the list that was glad TANAGRA was clearly clued.

    1. Thanks for stirring happy memories of childhood holidays along that stretch of coast (in the days when a Turner gallery in Margate would have been regarded as about as likely as a greyhound stadium in Tunbridge Wells)

      Trust you stopped for a refresher at the Captain Digby…

      Edited at 2015-04-03 10:11 pm (UTC)

  18. I thought I was in for quicky today but got bogged down in the SW. Finished eventually in 18:55. I knew TANAGRA. LOI was SOMBRE.
  20. 11:03 for me, making unduly heavy weather of some old chestnuts.

    Like others, I wanted MARNER to be part of the answer to 6dn. It might be worth noting that the Silas referred to in the &lit is (presumably) Paul’s chum in the NT, making this a rather neat clue. I’d have guessed from that that this might be a Don Manley puzzle, but I’m not sure that he’d have come up with “ending with suppers” for S. Overall, though, and interesting and enjoyable puzzle.

    Edited at 2015-04-03 11:03 pm (UTC)

    1. Ah yes, thanks for that – I did wonder if Silas was doing double duty of some kind, and kind of thought that it must be, but I’m afraid to say my Biblical knowledge was lacking!

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