Times 26,087: The Threesome Laws of Robotics

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
After two weeks of being vilely bronchial I wasn’t much looking forward to my Friday morning blogging duties, but on Thursday night I forced myself to get back in the game by going out and watch Canadian synthpop duo Purity Ring and drink The First Pint In Ages. Solving fuel, I tell you: I came back home and was able to complete this not-entirely-straightforward-seeming puzzle in about 9 and a half minutes. Back in the game!

16A and 20A started me off (the latter reminding me of a conversation with my 2 year old, where I held one up and said “this is an avocado”, to which she replied with the usual weary scorn “no daddy, *black pear*”) and I forged my way steadily through all the moderately difficult vocabulary and marginally trickier than usual wordplay before ending with the author at 22A as my LOI. Whose inclusion I did appreciate – fond memories of reading my way through stacks of dog-eared sci-fi from the library as a teen.

I really appreciated the setter’s art in this one, elegant surfaces throughout, hard to single out one COD when it’s all so neatly done across the board. Many thanks indeed to the compiler!

Across
1 ENFILADE – coordinated shots: (END A LIFE*) [“explosively”]
5 SPOILT – ruined: PO [river] “covered in” SILT [mud]
9 DIDACTIC – instructive: DID A{r}CTIC [toured | frozen zone] minus the R [“not finding river”]
10 PASTIS – aperitif: SAP reversed [“rejected” juice] + T I’S [time (to take) one’s]
12 FORTUNE-TELLER – “gypsy might be one”: FORTUNE [lots of money] “before” TELLER [cashier]
15 TASER – stunner: T{e}ASER [difficult question] minus the first E [“missing the first point”]
16 HEARTACHE – pain: HEAR TACHE [try | facial hair]
17 RIGMAROLE – complicated procedure: RIG MOLE [to manipulate | digger] “across” A R [R{oad} “at first”]
19 SWISH – smart: drunken pronunciation of “Swiss”
20 ALLIGATOR PEAR – fruit: (GORILLA ATE PAR{t} [“mostly”] *) [“messily”]
22 ASIMOV – writer: A SIM [a | sort of card] + OV{er} [“half” completed]
23 POLITICO – minister perhaps: reversed LOP [“cutback”] + IT I CO [appeal (with) one | business]
25 DENUDE – strip: reversed DUN [“turning” greying-brown] in DEE [river]
26 ASSONANT – “corresponding, so we hear”: AS SON A NT [since | child (needs) a | good book]

Down
1 END OF STORY – double def of “discussion finished” and “time for little one to sleep” (i.e. after a bedtime story)
2 FAD – FAD{e} [to lose intensity “shortly”] plus semi-&lit, as a fad’s appeal is short-lived
3 LACQUER – polish: homophone of LACKER [“in speaking”, one without]
4 DRIVE-THROUGH – type of restaurant: DRIVE THROUGH [“crush opposition to proposal”]
6 PLAYLET – “a few scenes”, i.e. a short play: and one might resolve a tennis “court dispute” by playing a let
7 INTERACTIVE – responding to each other (RECITATIVE + N [“man or woman finally”] *) [“compromised”]
8 TOSH – nonsense: one puts fingers to lips “TO SH”
11 MENAGE A TROIS – (SENORITA GAME*) [“kinky”] plus semi-&lit, as a kinky senorita might be game for such an arrangement
13 RESIGNATION – quiet acceptance: RE ASSIGNATION [about | tryst] minus A S [“being a second short”]
14 NETHERMOST – very backward: (HE TORMENTS*) [“criminal”]
18 ALL TOLD – in summary: and once you reach 1D (the END OF STORY) then all’s been told
19 SORDINO – mute: SOR{e} DIN [“endlessly” irritable | row] + O [“adding nothing to…”]
21 BALD – plain: homophone of BAWLED [howled “out loud”]
24 IDA – princess: {w}I{l}D {m}A{n} [“going, on and off”]

46 comments on “Times 26,087: The Threesome Laws of Robotics”

  1. Respect to the blogger, as I had a nightmare with this one.

    Seemed to spend the whole time chasing wild geese up blind alleys in search of a red herring.

    Will try again next week.

  2. I was undone by SORDINO today, not knowing the word and plumping for SORLINO thinking it might be SORE and LINE both endless.

    I liked several clues. PLAYLET and HEARTACHE stand out for me but my COD to SWISH for its high groan factor.

    1. Considered your method for SORLINO, and also came up with SORFITO truncating only the first word. Not all that thrilled with a clue that has so many options if you don’t know the term!
  3. A very similar experience to Galspray: just under the hour mark alas with 2 wrong (22a & 18d) and quite a few biffed in with fingers crossed. It took me ages to get started with an ever sinking feeling but after that it was a steady plod.
    This was a toughie but with some nice clues, 9a & 16a stand out for me.
    1. Very similar indeed deezzaa. Same two wrong. I had a dopey ALL READ which made the writer ungettable.

      I like to think I would have got ASIMOV with the right checkers, but that’s a bit like saying I could do these quicker if I was better at crosswords.

      1. Spooky indeed. Yes I had ALL READ as well.
        Annoyingly I surmised 22a ended in OV quite early on but as CHECKOV or NABUKOV didn’t fit promptly forgot about it after I’d got BALD
      2. … and I had ALL SAID which also somewhat screwed up the author.
  4. Same problem with 22ac and 18d having put in ALL SAID then struggling with 22ac trying to justify AQINAS (yes, I know it should have a U in but I was desperate), and was thinking Q would do for the card (ie Queen). Otherwise lots of clues biffed (I just wanted to use that lovely word!)and done in about 12 mins apart from the aforementioned disaster.
  5. Ground to a halt in the SW corner, and ended up on all but 25 minutes. ALL SAID my undoing, though I wondered where the “and done” was. Couldn’t do much with the shouty homophone at 21, wondering if baid or yeld were possibilities, so that didn’t help with ASIMOV, especially since I was working through every conceivable card cut in half for the writer, if the answer was a writer. I gave up after “Congratulations on passing your driving test” and went for the necessary radical rethink. Probably spent more time on those three than our stellar-timed blogger (looking much healthier, by the way – congratulations) did on the whole shebang. We share an enthusiasm for Asimov who laid the Foundation for so much in the genre. Must get me one of those positronic brain thingies.
    My current Essex environment almost did for me on 1d: round here, “END OF” is fine to close down discussion (I couldn’t fit in “leave it Tracey, he’s not worth it”). Couldn’t work out where the rest of the clue was. Looking for completely the wrong kind of stunner (possibly the aforementioned Tracey) didn’t help much either
    I DID know SORDINO – all that choral singing finally paid off. And Richard Sharpe to the rescue again for ENFILADE. So are we formed and moulded by happenstance.
  6. 18:52 … terrific puzzle, terrific blog, very entertaining comments. Z8, you nearly cost me a keyboard in a coffee-related incident. Truly my cup runneth over.

    One query. 19a. It almost feels like there’s a “from” missing in the clue (as in “chap from Geneva”). What’s the “chap” doing there?

    1. Probably more likely than the setter referring to an effeminate gay….
      1. I was delicately trying to avoid mentioning that!

        When I first solved the clue I assumed that there was a nounal meaning of “stylish man” for SWISH, but the only noun form I can find is the one you mention, which all dictionaries have as “offensive”. I still wonder if I’m misreading the clue.

        1. This thread is a bit over my head, but isn’t it just “chap Geneva’s got” = SWISS?

          (I may have missed the point entirely, I’m still reeling from McT’s “in front” and “behind” in yesterday’s comments).

          1. That didn’t occur to me, but it strikes me as a bit of a tortuous definition, particularly as the surface doesn’t make sense. It’s also a DBE, since a lot of people who live in Geneva are tax exiles!

            Edited at 2015-05-01 09:06 am (UTC)

            1. I briefly posted a comment along the same lines, but doesn’t the “got” have to mean “heard”? I don’t know. Getting out of my depth now.
              1. Presumably Geneva’s got lots of chaps, most of whom could be described as a “Swiss”. As well as some tax exiles, as K points out.
                1. I think sotira’s point is that ‘got drunk’ is telling you that ‘Swiss’ is heard (‘got’) as SWISH. If your definition is the right one then ‘got’ is doing double duty, which is a no-no.
                  Just ‘drunk’ for ‘sounding drunk’ seems OK to me though.
                  So to conclude: I’ve no idea.
            2. tax exiles? Not very good ones as Geneva is up there with Zurich as one of the most tax-expensive Cantons in Switzerland. Now Lucerne . . .
              1. I’m no expert on this subject but it is my understanding that, like the other Cantons, Geneva is open to a negotiation if you’ve got enough dosh.
                1. You can negotiate with any tax jurisdiction but they tend to have to stick to the published rates of tax. The negotiation is on what should be subject to this tax. In my experience, Lucerne is particularly friendly as well as being a beautiful location. You could probably do yet better in Zug but you might have to live in a barn.
      2. Protected species as I am, I only knew the “smart, stylish” meaning of SWISH. I’m now concerned that my parents may have been trying to tell me something quite different all those years ago on the rare occasions when I was smart enough to earn the accolade.
    2. I think you’re right. For the surface to make sense you need either ‘from’ or a non-capitalised ‘geneva’, but the latter mucks up the wordplay.

      Edited at 2015-05-01 09:09 am (UTC)

  7. 24 minutes for this but would fail any drugs’ test after the best part of a week struck down with Verlainitis. Held up on my last in, also the author, not just by the slightly offbeat nature of the oeuvre but also by putting in ‘all said’ at18d. Never heard of a SORDINO, and was disappointed to have my visions of a deaf and dumb street urchin in Naples shattered by the prosaic truth of a prop on a cello.
    1. I though Sordino was going to be the mute in The Merchant of Venice or Two Gentlemen of Verona of whom everyone had heard apart from me.
  8. 14m, helped by resisting the temptation to bung in ALL SAID and YELD, a variant on VELD. Sometimes words that look a bit like something familiar are the right answer (ODEUM), and sometimes they aren’t.
    I didn’t know SORDINO or ALLIGATOR PEAR. The latter looks like a new verse for the children’s poem Alligator Pie.
  9. An excellent puzzle completed in 30 minutes so a boost to my confidence to end the week on. A good mix of biffs and slower assembly of less familiar words from wordplay.

    I knew SORDINO from music but ENFILADE was new to me (or forgotten). Didn’t understand the literal at 2dn.

  10. Definitely a chewy one, though nothing unknown and I got there in the end. BALD and ASIMOV were the last in.

    Am I the only Australian solver to find 1ac a little unfortunate?

    Dereklam

  11. 44 minutes, with BALD my LOI. Nice to see Isaac making an appearance at 22ac.

  12. 15 mins. It felt fairly chewy while I was solving it and I was surprised when I saw my time. I must try preparing like Verlaine did. SORDINO was my LOI from the wordplay after SWISH, and if I had ever come across it before I had certainly forgotten it. My “should have solved it quicker than I did” answer for today was BALD, which is nearly as bad as not getting ANDREW immediately in a prize puzzle a couple of weeks ago.

    I like tringmardo’s excuse for using “biffed”. It is indeed a glorious word, and I like it much better that the original BIFD. Apologies to Grestyman for the way it has been altered, but I admire him for sticking to his guns and using the version he coined.

    1. I think it’s nice to retain some memory of the origin of the term, so I favour BIFD for the past tense, and variants of ‘biff’ for all other uses.
      I look forward to the day when people on this forum debate which version is ‘correct’!
      1. I dream of the day when I am finally able to biff in the word BIFID…
  13. Back to normal form for me, at 35 minutes, with SORDINO and ASIMOV stubbornly resisting for about the last 15.
  14. I don’t think you’d call a drive through a type of restaurant. A take-away yes. Also the “swish” clue doesn’t appear to work fully.
    1. I suppose drive-throughs tend to be at the less classy end of the eatery spectrum, but does an establishment really need to exceed some classiness threshold to qualify as a “restaurant”?

      I do think that “chap Geneva’s got” was a bit odd for SWISS, but it doesn’t seem a wholly unreasonable alternative to “Genevan chap” to me…

  16. This took me too long, about 45 minutes, with two errors. After finally getting BALD, having considered YELD, like keriothe, I entered a misspelled ADISON, and wondered if a FUD might be a loser, so entered that as a desperate gamble. At least I knew sordino, so that wasn’t a problem.

    I agree with those who think 19a doesn’t seem to work very well. The only sense I can make of it is to read it as ‘…chap that Geneva’s got…’, ie a Swiss man, or a Swiss.

  17. 38m with same trouble as others in SW, having BIFD confidently ALL OVER, rethought it to ALL TOLD but changed the ending of 13d instead of 18d. Sigh! As the Great Man of Stratford has it: ‘when the age comes in the wit goes out!’ So a struggle all of my own making! Excellent blog and time! I might try that ‘fuel’ next week though perhaps not the music!
  18. 13:21 and like Andy I was surprised to post such a respectable time as I felt I was plodding through.

    Assonant and sordino unknown and as a tennis player I’ll give playlet the COD silver salver.

  19. My first DNF for a while. Undone by ALL SAID and a complete ignorance of violin mutes. Threw in the towel after about 35 mins.
  20. Feeling somewhat reassured that others found this puzzle time consuming, as I felt that I was being exceptionally thick. Respect to Verlaine for a superb time,and pleased to know that your recovery is continuing.
  21. 9:55 for me, held up (like others) by bunging in ALL SAID.

    An interesting and enjoyable puzzle.

  22. The Bible is a book. Genesis is a book. Each of the gospels is a book. The New Testament (NT) is NOT a book!
  23. 18d: tried ALL OVER, ALL DONE, ALL SAID. Would have liked to hear a bell (all tolled?) or similar to remove confusion. Failed to believe Asimov was the answer to 22a. Knew the word sordino but not the pear in 22a. Utter failure. Took me three days, but then I don’t attempt the Times often.

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