Times 26091 – no X after all

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
As I eventually managed 1a with its Q and finished with 1d in about 40 minutes (with tea and toast in bed, early doors), I thought this was going to be my first time announcing a pangram (maybe I’d had one before but failed to notice). However, it wasn’t to be, there’s no X. This was harder than the last couple of days’ offerings but very enjoyable with a different ‘flavour’ I thought. Bloggers can’t biff, of course, and I think I see all the parsing, but there’s probably scope for the wizards to tidy up.

Across
1 SQUILLION – Def. number; a squillion is apparently an indeterminate large number smaller than a zillion. QUILL = writer, I, inside SON = child.
6 UNCUT – CU = copper, inside ‘UNT = cockney for search (!) so the def. is ‘no Ripper victim’. Where would crosswordland be without the poor old cockney with his missing aspirate? Better off, some would say.
9 BASMATI – B = initially burst, AS = when, MAT = one walked on, I = one; def. sort of grain, a variety of long grain rice.
10 OUT-HALF – Anagram of FOUL THA, no (T); def. rugby player.
11 RERUN – I think the def. is ‘new performance’ and it’s RE = touching, about, before RUN = tear. But not totally convinced.
13 AVOIDANCE – A VOICE = a speech provider, around DAN as in Dan Dare, Eagle comic hero; def. skipping.
14 ROGAN JOSH – ROAN = horse, around G = good, then JOSH = kid; spicy food, one of my squillion favourite Indian dishes.
16 EMMA – Hidden reversed in PROGR(AMME)D; girl’s name.
18 DATA – DA = lawman, TA = cheers, thanks; def. evidence.
19 PACEMAKER – Def. front runner. Pace (Latin, ablative case of pax) can mean ‘to give due respect to’, MAKE = kind, R = Republican.
22 MISS WORLD – MISS = failure to catch, WORLD sounds like whirled, quickly turned; def. talent contest. Here I think the word ‘talent’ is used loosely, or ironically, perhaps. Or can talent be solely visual? Discuss.
24 LARGE – NCO informally = ‘Sarge’, swap the S for an L, def. generous. Solve this before solving 3d.
25 GIACOMO – Signor Puccini’s first name; GI = soldier, A = anarchist primarily, CO = conscientious objector, pacifist; MO = second. I spent an age trying to remember a name of a soldier in Tosca, before the easier penny dropped. The rest of you biffed it I expect.
26 DRIPPED – DRIED = out of water, PP = pennies, inside (bottled); def. gradually dropped.
28 DENIS – DEN = earth, IS = lives; patron saint of Paris.
29 EYE SHADOW – EYES = spots, HAD = used, OW = that hurt; def. cosmetic.

Down
1 SOBERER – Here GREET has a less common meaning, from Old English grǣtan to weep, = SOB, then ER ER = dual monarchy; def. evidently more moderate. My LOI, nearly made me greet.
2 UPS – Alternate letters of bUs PaSs; def. peak times.
3 LEARNING – L = large, ans. to 24a, EARNING = bringing home, def. picking up.
4 IBIZA – I = current, in physics; BIZ = affairs, A = avoided at first; def. holiday location.
5 NEO-GOTHIC – (TO ECHOING)*, where TO = exterior of Tiepolo; def. architectural style.
6 UNTIDY – insert NT = books, ID = papers, in UY = guys endlessly; def. in a mess.
7 CHAIN-SMOKER – CHOKER = necklace; insert (IS MAN)*; def. compulsive drag performer. Very droll.
8 TAFFETA – TAF = FAT = rich, turned up, FETA = cheese; def. material.
12 RIGHT AS RAIN – WELL = right, and AS RAIN = resembling a waterfall; def. this, &lit.
15 ON PURPOSE – OUR POSE = our attitude, insert N(ew) P(ressure); def. determined.
17 SMALLISH – SMASH = break, insert ILL reversed = put up complaint; def. rather petty.
18 DEMIGOD – (ODD GEM I)*; def. being worshipped.
20 RE-ENDOW – ROW = bank, insert (NEED)*; def. will once again.
21 SWOOPS – SW = saw, cutting the A, OOPS = that was careless! Def. busts, as in drug busts.
23 DODGE – Cryptic definition, or double definition?
27 PUD – DUPE = trick, mostly = remove the E, on reflection = reversed; def. duff, as in plum duff.

45 comments on “Times 26091 – no X after all”

  1. 25:29 for a fairly steady solve. Like yesterday it helped that there were no unknowns, though GIACOMO was only half known.

    My LOI was DENIS as I’d hesitated, being unsure of den for earth but thinking that a St Denis sounded likely as I’ve heard of a Rue De St Denis in Paris. There’s also an area of Southampton called St Denys which I thought was pronounced like the French much to my wife’s amusement, who told me it’s pronounced Saint Dennies. Still, she did the same for Theydon Bois in Essex (pronounced boys).

  2. But especally enjoyed the CHAIN-SMOKER.
    Didn’t know the other name for the FLY-HALF.
    Suspect that the “Greet” in 1dn is Scots. It was in a recent-ish Groan puzzle.
    At 22ac, George almost got his favoured “whirred ploy”!
    Wot? No Casanova at 25ac. Any other famous GIACOMOs?
    1. Conterno? Admittedly this requires a fairly narrow definition of ‘famous’…
        1. Weird, when I click on that link I just get a blank page apart from this:

          Geo = {}

          Anyway, I did say the definition was quite narrow. To his fans he’s famous!

  3. I share your fondness for Rogan Josh Pip. Unfortunately the name first became known to me as a Melbourne Cup-winning racehorse, and to this day I can’t quite get that out of my mind when I’m tucking into it. Doesn’t stop me though.

    Pedant alert: I had 23dn as a double def rather than a cryptic. And I agree with your passing of 11ac, but the elements are the wrong way around in your explanation.

    Talent contest? Yeah, right. Thanks setter and blogger.

    1. Seems GIACOMO won the Kentucky Derby in 2005. See above.
      Probably better known than Galspray?
      1. That’s because Galspray was about as well-performed as his cruciverbial namesake. Better blood-lines though.
  4. No 6-minute solve for me today on this tricky puzzle. Pleased to see that my 15:38 still looks like a creditable performance on the scoreboard (so far). I knew “greet” from the Scots, but was surprised to find ER is a whole monarchy unto herself!
  5. 20 mins. Definitely trickier than the last couple of puzzles, although I did myself no favours by reading the last word of 17dn as “pretty” rather than “petty” for ages, and as a consequence SMALLISH was my LOI after PACEMAKER. I thought the clue for UNCUT was an absolute belter.

    Yes Pip, I did biff GIACOMO, although I parsed it post-solve.

  6. 15m, steady and very enjoyable solve.
    I read 12dn as just a cryptic definition: not that it matters!
  7. 28:07 with much time spent in the DENIS / SWOOPS area before eliminating DONOR. An enjoyable puzzle.

    The Eye-beef-a comment reminds me of an old Heineken advert http://youtu.be/Uz9_YfIQaz4

    Perhaps some kind person could unspam if needed

    1. Brilliant. I missed that one. Good to hear Victor Borge again. My favourite remains Norman Wisdom trying to put the deck-chair up.

      And here it is: http://youtu.be/kPlby5v8KJw

      Edited at 2015-05-06 11:20 am (UTC)

  8. 16 minutes leaves me far higher up the leaderboard than it usually would, so I was clearly on the wavelength; as all the required knowledge also fell safely within my definition of “general”, this would explain why I very much enjoyed the struggle. One of those which looks horribly difficult on a quick skim before it becomes apparent that it’s all there if you read the clue the right way. Nice work.
  9. 3 Galsprays, so not totally on the proverbial today. I thought this was a very good puzzle, even though I struggled mightily on SQUILLION, IBIZA (re Pootle’s pronunciation comments, I can’t say this or think of it wivart putting on an Essex accent: “We always goes to EYE-beef-a cos it’s not so touristy, Sharon”), AVOIDANCE at the top, and on DENIS (‘Donor’, anyone?) and SWOOPS and at the bottom.

  10. After bunging in half-a-dozen answers fairly swiftly I ground to a complete halt and took ages to slog my way through the rest of it one battle at a time. It was satisfying to get there in the end and without resort to aids but I didn’t enjoy the journey much.
  11. 18:11 … very enjoyable stuff. I parsed RERUN as you did, pip.

    TALENT CONTEST is presumably talent as in “eyeing up the talent”, so very politically incorrect — as is the contest, so that’s fine.

    The CHAIN-SMOKER clue is very good, but I don’t think our Z8’s clue for it from the Christmas Turkey can be ever be beaten.

    Can’t settle on a COD — too many candidates. So thanks, setter. Thanks, pip.

    2. Aha – so that’s it. I knew I’d seen it somewhere not too long ago. I loved “puff adder”. Thanks Z and Sotira.
  12. Squeezed in under 30 minutes (just) when I realised that looking for the X was a waste of time, and I hadn’t got one wrong on its account after all.
    Looking for the pangram did help me with SQUILLION, though. And I biffed not Puccini – couldn’t remember his name and built it painstakingly from the wordplay.
    I did wonder about RERUN, mostly because in the normal use of the term, it’s anything but a new performance. And RUN/tear is a bit iffy too. Runs in my book are the partial unravelling of the weave (especially in nylons),possibly as the result of a tear. But I guess all’s fair enough in crosswords if you push the words around enough.
    2. I’m pretty sure the sense of tear and run we’re after here is to move rapidly, nothing to do with ripped undies I’m afraid.
      2. My version was more fun. Personally, I only use nylons on those very special weekends and on the occasional bank job.
  13. Started well but slowed down considerably. Once I had DAN_E as an ending to 13 I was convinced I should be thinking of a dance. Even when I had A_O_DAN_E I was slow to see the abstract noun. 1a was a double-bluff as I was certain that the answer would be an anaesthetic, and so it went on, taking 50 minutes in the end.

    An enjoyable puzzle with some deceptive clues, but I’m afraid I find 6a in exceptionally poor taste. It should have been subjected to an editorial cut.

    Sorry to be picky, but I don’t see 12d as &lit (v blog). It’s just a cryptic pun.

  14. 14:55 with some biffage but not for Giacomo. Like Z I didn’t know the blighter’s name and had to piece together the wordplay until I came up with something that passed muster as a possible foreign name.

    Along similar lines to Dyste I thought “skipping” was a musical instruction so was expecting something like A***DANTE.

    I also caused problems by getting some lights mixed up (7d & 5dn) so was looking for an architectural style with a first word C?A.

    Thanks all round.

    1. I could have biffed the blighter as I’ve been to his gaff in Lucca a couple of times, seen his fine statue and had good nosh at a nearby hostelry. Recommended if you’re passing that way. I also like his tunes – the only operas which don’t get turned off in our house / car.
  15. Raced through most of this and was then staring at what ended up being SWOOPS and DENIS for an eternity before figuring them out. I did not spot the cryptic for MISS WORLD which I agree with mctext about, and OUT-HALF came from wordplay.
  16. A squillion is an unspecified number – so not actually a number.

    The patron saint of Sleaford, Lincs is St. Denys! We were always taught at school(obviously wrongly) it was the French spelling.

    I must get out a bit more.

    Horry

  17. After 58m the towel fell into the ring and solver was all biffed out, with 21d and 28a not solved. Now I know the answers there’s no obvious reason for this – didn’t know the Parisian patron but ought to have guessed it and though I’d thought of SWOOPS I dismissed it as not fitting the clue in any way at all! Sigh! I particularly admired the neatness of 16d – my favourite Jane Austen heroine too!

    Edited at 2015-05-06 04:19 pm (UTC)

    1. That’ll be her at 16a… I wish I was well-read enough to have Jane Austen heroines a-plenty to choose from, I was more of a Bathsheba or Tess chap, I think TH really got into the female psyche. Regards.

      Edited at 2015-05-06 06:13 pm (UTC)

  18. About 35 minutes for a tricky puzzle, ending with SMALLISH, RE-ENDOW and EYE SHADOW, because I had to correct a dopey EYE POWDER to get there. PACEMAKER also took a while because I associate it pretty exclusively with the medical device rather than its older meaning. Regards.

    Edited at 2015-05-06 05:50 pm (UTC)

  19. 31 minutes, which for me is pretty good. I’m beginning to suspect that my spare brain cell may have mitosed. Partly for this reason, I think this was a great little puzzle.

    Like some others here, I’d never heard of an OUT-HALF. However, I lump rugby together with golf and salmon-breeding as one of those hobbies that just makes up words to be clever, so I wasn’t fazed. Nor did I know “sob” as a meaning of “greet”, though the wordplay and checkers made it clear enough.

    6ac (with its copper and it’s Cockney) put me in mind of a notorious paper which appeared in Chemical Communications in 2007. It was by a group of Chinese authors, who had found a way to make nanotubes from copper, and blithely referred to them (repeatedly) by an acronym which was entirely in keeping with the standard notation but quite fantastically out of line with English sensibilities. But I digress, probably too far.

    Regarding 15d – is “on purpose” really synonymous with “determined”? I’m struggling to find a plausible substitution.

    1. Maybe ‘determined’ to ‘on purpose’ requires a three-point turn via purposeful.

      I was intrigued enough to put the key words in a Google search and was impressed by how they made the letter ‘u’ lower case as distinct from the other three. Obviously, editorial boards are only to be got on as a step up the academic ladder. No editing work required.

  20. Crikey—-coud not work out how “sob” could be “greet”—-that is pretty obscure—thank you. I enjoyed this puzzle—-more playful and wittier than recent offerings. COD chain-smoker—made me smile.
    1. ‘Greet’ is one of those words I have only ever encountered in crosswords, but it’s pretty regular, so keep an eye out!
  21. Pip’s comment about spending time trying to remember the name of a soldier in Tosca (So did I) reminded me of my favourite opera disaster story, one that concerns the under-rehearsed firing squad in that very opera. They aim and fire at the wrong person (“Well, it’s called Tosca and the heroine always dies”) then with no other stage instructions other than “Exit with the principals”, they jump over the battlements with said eponymous heroine.
    Splendid puzzle. My favourite clues were9ac, 28ac and 14ac. 55mins and some seconds.
  22. My 13:16 left me feeling old and slow as I’d made heavy weather of several clues that I’d have sailed through in the past. And yet, judging from others’ times, it seems to have placed me quite well up the field – though I note that crypticsue has yet to put in an appearance.

    I hadn’t heard of OUT-HALF, though admittedly rugger was never really my game (I was relieved to escape into the cross-country team at school). And although I had heard of ROGAN JOSH (though I don’t think I’ve ever actually eaten it), I’d have bunged in ROGAN GOSH if it hadn’t been for the wordplay. (Better add it to my list of difficult words!)

    Nice puzzle.

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