Times 26065 – A Piece of the Proverbial

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A busy morning means I’ll get to this in the afternoon (HK time), so the blog should be up by 9am UK time.

Well, that wasn’t too painful. Just 14 minutes, in fact, so expect something Bannisteresque from Magoo, and something special I suspect from the young (and old ) Oxonians, not to mention the Queen of Tippex and the one who paces the corridors ever ready with his judgements…

Across

1 Immodesty – IM MODE STY(les)
6 Ample – MP in ALE
9 Whitsun – ‘a week in spring’: W[ith] HITS + initials U N
10 Stirrup – STIR (R) UP
11 Noise – NO (I) SE
12 Attentive – EVITA around NETT all reversed
14 Tag – DD
15 Spontaneous – PUT IN SEASON anagram*
17 Sausage meat – A USA GEM in SEAT. Tasty
19 Sly – SL(a)Y
20 Assurance – SARACENS U*
22 Uvula – initial letters of the five words starting ‘using’
24 Equerry – E QUER(R)Y
26 Tallies – T(ALL)IES
27 Tidal – T(ID)AL[k]
28 Martyrdom – MART YR DO M

Down

1 Iowan – I O WAN
2 Mailing – M AILING
3 Dyspepsia – SIPPED SAY*
4 Singaporean – PERSON AGAIN*
5 Yes – [e]YES
6 Alien – A LIE N
7 Portico – PORT IC O
8 Expressly – EXPRESS L Y. There seems to be a pattern to this.
13 To the letter – DD
14 Testament – TES (TA MEN) T
16 Not guilty – GLUTTONY I*
18 Unsound – [r]UNS [r]OUND
19 Studied – STU(DIE)D
21 Rural – RU R[e]A[a]L[y]
23 Assam – A MASS all reversed
25 Yam – MA[n]Y reversed

And that shallot.

41 comments on “Times 26065 – A Piece of the Proverbial”

  1. Nice to have an easy one today, especially with the extra Jumbo to do, and a couple from last week that I wasn’t able to look at then. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to come up with the word for 16d before finally noticing that it was two words. Is it just me, or are we having a lot of equerries lately?
    1. Thanks for mentioning the Jumbo. It’s not visible on the daily crossword page, only in the Club.
  2. … in crossword land after a week of medical logistics.
    Got 24ac from yesterday’s travesty of a puzzle — which included a concealed anagram.
    The Times is obviously going to the dogs. Perhaps The Groan from now on?

    1. It looks like the ST is bidding to outdo the TLS for dodgy cryptics, though with occasional references to “popular culture” rather than occasional references to literature. Should promote lively discussion once we get to it.
  3. 9ac: W(with), HITS (strikes), U{rgent}, N{egotiations}

    Edited at 2015-04-06 06:28 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks, Jack. I got it in the car on the way to the barbecue. I’ll delete my original rubbish to align with today’s minimalist style.
  4. Reference 22ac I was thinking that the uvula plays no part in the production of vocal sounds, but on checking Wiki I found this: “Phoneticians describe a range of human speech sounds as uvular consonants, including the voiced uvular trill, written [R] in the International Phonetic Alphabet, a sound associated with the singing voice of French singer and actor Édith Piaf”. It can also contribute to snoring, so maybe that qualifies too. All a bit obscure though.

    A nice puzzle completed in exactly 30 minutes.

    I enjoyed the reminder of the late Jimmy Wheeler in your sign-off, u!

    Edited at 2015-04-06 06:50 am (UTC)

    1. I believe it was the (Defense?) Minister Michel Debré who even the French made fun of for his uvularity. And the symbol for the uvular r is an upside-down capital [R], which I’m not going to try to write here; the Q of Qatar is a uvular stop [q], and Japanese has a uvular nasal [N], as in the name of the country [nihoN].

      Edited at 2015-04-06 08:41 am (UTC)

  5. 13:03 … bit slowed up by SAUSAGE MEAT and ATTENTIVE, where I’m probably not the only one who tried to work Annie into the equation.

    Perfectly good Monday puzzle but a bit light for a lazy bank holiday, so off now for a rare run at the Jumbo, Which I’ll almost certainly regret half way through.

      1. Thanks, jackkt. Always good to know one isn’t alone.

        I always seem to think of Annie, then Cats, and then Evita, which just goes to show how much these puzzles warp one’s thinking, given that Evita is the only one of the three I’ve actually seen.

        1. If I went by musicals I’ve seen, my list would go Matilda, We Will Rock You, The Book of Mormon, and end there. Not much use for crosswords.
    2. I must confess I biffed ‘attentive’ and then spotted the musical. Jewison’s film of JC Superstar is very good, but the only musicals I can recommend from my small West End sample are Les Mis (first half) and Book of Mormon, which is a hoot as well as a darn good history lesson.
  6. A new experience of trying to do a crossword with a clock ticking in the peripheral vision and no pen and paper to hand. Did not like but 25 minutes and change later all complete, so not too bad. The Times went to the dogs long ago but its crossword is still OK so no groans from me.
    Cheers,
    pa
    1. If doing it online, the first thing I do is scroll down so I can’t see the clock ticking.
  7. Yes, a quick solve even for this doddery old stroller in the park. I’ve never understood why they put easy puzzles out on public holidays when most folk have more relaxed time to devote to solving!
  8. Missed the parsing for ATTENTIVE but stuck it in on def & cross checkers.

    Other than that all present and correct. I don’t time these things but I’m pretty sure this was my quickest finish yet.

    Thanks for the blog Ulaca.

  9. 11.31 for this one, so a gentle canter. I paused for a bit wondering whether Whitsun constituted a week, but I see it does, and for villeins back in the good old days of feudal thingummy, it was a week’s holiday. I bet it wasn’t for Guy of Guisborne’s serfs (if he had any). These days, we just get the one day, and not the Monday following Whit Sunday either. Mouldy chiz.
    I also wrestled with the alternate letters clue at 21 before realising that “sport” didn’t contribute any and prral isn’t any kind of word.
    1. Come to France, we have no less than 4 public holidays next month (and today); May 1, 8, 14 and 25. And the Thursday one always leads to ‘faire le pont’ where nobody works on the Friday either. But apparently French workers are more productive than British? Hard to credit.
  10. 6:46, but with ATTENDIVE. There’s not much point checking your answers if you do it so quickly you miss that sort of thing, is there?

    Edited at 2015-04-06 08:00 am (UTC)

  11. Was hoping this would take a while, so as to delay starting the scrape and paint repair job on the shutters, but it took me 14 minutes, like ulaca, a magoo by my standards. LOI was sausage meat 17a, in what some would call a vanilla puzzle I believe.
  12. 8 mins. Count me as another who was looking to fit “Annie” into 12ac until the penny dropped. MAILING, hardly the most difficult of the answers, was my LOI after WHITSUN because when I first read the clue I was sure that the M was going to be somewhere inside the answer. I was glad there was anagram fodder for DYSPEPSIA because I am usually tempted to spell it “dispepsia”.
  13. Having made a pig’s ear of today’s Quickie I came to the 15×15 and completed in 23 minutes which is about as quick as it ever gets for me. So, now the books are balanced, I’d better get on with the gardening.
  14. I’ve only seen the films of Cats and Evita and didn’t care for either. Annie, mercifully, I’ve never seen.
    1. Share your feelings about Annie, and musicals involving people dressed as animals never appeal. But … Evita was the first musical I ever saw up West, and David Essex was playing Che and singing Oh What A Circus, a performance which I would happily have walked to London to see. Never forgotten.
  15. My first ever weekday sub-10. Can we just pretend this wasn’t the easiest crossword ever so that I can bask in the glory for a minute or two? No, didn’t think so.

    Thanks setter and blogger. Might retire now.

    Edited at 2015-04-06 11:06 am (UTC)

    1. No one can retire before they do a blogging stint. Sub-10 – if not quite the solver’s holy grail, then at least another stage on the via dailidosa.
    2. Well done, you. It’s been coming, though, hasn’t it? I’ve noticed your times coming down fast. You sign a new coach?
      1. Thanks S. Perhaps a gradual trend, but I’m still more than capable of an all-day solve.

        And all my coaching comes from this blog! Not sure where I’d be without Ulaca’s “encouragement”.

  16. Those starved of bank holiday intellectual activity as a result of todays cryptic might want to look at PB’s suggestion in the General section of the Crossword Club Forum. It is not yet clear though whether an iPad is needed.

    Edited at 2015-04-06 11:58 am (UTC)

  18. 7:12 and yes I did (use Tippex 🙂 – just the once.

    Edited at 2015-04-06 12:53 pm (UTC)

  19. Not far off a PB today coming home in 13 mins which was only a minute over my time for the Quickie.
  20. Hi all. I’ve been away for a week without access to the computer, and relaxed actually reading real books. I returned to one of the simplest puzzles I can remember, breezing through in about 10 minutes, ending at SINGAPOREAN. Regards.
  21. 20 minutes for this one which is fast for me. FOI Iowan and LOI Attentive.
  22. I’m afraid this old Oxonian’s brain seemed to be barely functioning after an exhausting day, so that I struggled to a depressing 8:57 for what should have been a clean sweep. (Sigh!)
  23. Yep, not too difficult – one of those rather straightforward puzzles where everything works just as you initially expect it to. Count me as another possible PB at 6:20, given that I’m not sure I can conceive of ever getting a sub-5-minute time…

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