Times 26095 – Measured again, found wanting?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: No official time.

Music: None, the playoff at the Player’s.

This must have been pretty easy, because I was paying very little attention to the puzzle and completed it in about 20 minutes of elapsed time. Now Fowler has just won, having birdied the island green for the third time today, so at least I can concentrate on the blog.

There were actually a few things I had never heard of in ‘Belper’ and ‘lentiform’, but the cryptics made them pretty easy. I indulged in a fair amount of biffing after concluding that this puzzle was not going to be at all taxing. Unfortunately, that means I can’t explain the cryptic for 10 across, but I’m sure it’s something quite obvious.

This was my fifth Times puzzle in a row, having been out of town for a bit. I’m still catching up, with Saturday and Sunday still remaining. I found Tuesday through Friday rather difficult, but the struggle may have helped me with this one.

Across
1 CORPSE, CO(R)PSE.
4 MODICUM, M.O. + DIC[t]UM.
9 UMBER, [l]UMBER.
10 RESOUNDED, bifd. As usual, Alec has the answer. It’s not a letter-removal clue, but a double definition. The second definition refers to pressing the ‘snooze’ button on your alarm clock, which will cause the clock to ‘re-sound’ after a few minutes.
11 DROP SCONE, DROPS CONE, i.e. a bright orange traffic cone.
12 LAITY, LA[x]ITY.
13 TONY, TO([me]N)Y, an odious word. ‘Model’ = ‘toy’, however, is noteworthy, since the word is often an anagrind.
14 BADMOUTHED, B(AD + M + OUT + H)ED.
18 TAKEN STOCK, double definition.
20 AVER, RAVE with the ‘R’ moved to the end.
23 ANTIC, ANTI + C[hange], a 17th-century term.
24 EPIDERMIC, EPIDE(R[esearch])MIC.
25 LENTIFORM, LENT + I FORM. ‘Type’ seems to be doing double duty, or perhaps not.
26 PROMO, PROM + O[rchestra].
27 BESPEAK, B(E.S.P.)EAK. While ‘beak’ is common slang for a judge, it can also refer to a schoolmaster.
28 ARTERY, hidden backwards in [journe]Y RETRA[ced].
 
Down
1 COUP D’ETAT, anagram of ACTED OUT + P[ower].
2 RUB DOWN, RU(BO(D[ocks])W)N.
3 SOREST, STORES with the ‘T’ moved to the end.
4 MASSE, M(ASS)E, a billiards stroke.
5 DOUBLE UP, double definition!
6 CADDISH, C(A D.D. IS)H
7 MADLY MA(-n +D)LY, a simple letter-substitution clue.
8 ARROGANT, ARR(O G)ANT.
15 MACHISMO, MACH IS (M) O.
16 DIRECTORY, DI + RECTORY, lift and separate, of course.
17 I NA(C)TIVE.
19 KETONES, sounds like KEY TONES.
21 VAMOOSE, V[alley] + A MOOSE.
22 BELPER, BE(LP)ER, a rather unlikely-sounding town, but easy to parse.
23 AD-LIB, anagram of A BID + L, an &lit.
24 EBOOK, OBE upside down + OK.

49 comments on “Times 26095 – Measured again, found wanting?”

  1. If you ignore your alarm clock, it will (in most cases) go off again later … hence RE-SOUNDED. At least, that’s how I read it.
  2. … through this quite quickly until I got to BELPER. (There couldn’t be a place called BEEPER, could there?) Odd as I cycled a fair bit of Derbyshire in my youth; but couldn’t bring it to mind. Rough time: this and today’s Groan in about 40 mins. Talking of which, the latter has an overlap with 18ac.
  3. I think I spent the last 10′ in the NW fretting over 2d,11ac, and 13ac. Finally remembered DROP SCONE (I think we had it recently), and flung in RUB DOWN & TONY withouth ever parsing them–I had thought of ‘model’=T, which didn’t help matters. So I was all correct through no fault of my own, except that for some reason–no good one, I’m sure–I typed in ‘maddy’ at 7d. DNK BELPER, but reasoned as Mctext did.
    1. Yes, we had beaks at school in the 70s, and I noted on a return last year that the terms is still used. May be more a public school usage.
  5. 44 minutes but needed help on TONY, which may be odious but is at least known to be odious to N American solvers*, unlike this British one.

    The image of men on the back of a motorway lorry chucking out more confounded cones to double journey times in DROPS CONE is superb.

    * according to Oxford

  6. 13m. Not hard, in spite of a few unknowns and a bit of an old-fashioned feel… except for EBOOK.
    I remembered TONY from a previous puzzle. I’m not sure what Mr Sever will think of the opprobrium being heaped on his name!
    2. I don’t mind being called fashionable, even though it’s very far from the truth (as I’m sure my wife would confirm). And there’s a less flattering meaning of TONY in Chambers.
  7. Quick for me today, with all done in about 25 mins, but needed a few more for TONY. MASSE was my only unknown, but guessed from massage etc. Did wonder if BELPER / Beeper might cause a little confusion…
  8. No time to offer as I nodded off with about half done, but having completed the remainder this morning in only 7 minutes I think it was pretty easy if a little strange in a few instances. My DKs were MASSE and LENTIFORM and I struggled with TONY. Had no idea what was going on at 10ac.

    Now that the unmentionable is over perhaps I might be allowed to recall that the Labour MP for BELPER for many years was one George Brown who held many high offices of state including Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister under Harold Wilson. He was no stranger to the bottle and his party agent coined the phrase “tired and emotional” to account for his unfortunate condition on various public occasions and late night TV appearances. It has since passed into the language.

    Edited at 2015-05-11 06:10 am (UTC)

    1. As M. Tucker would say, another five years of “six toed, born-to-rule, pony f*ers”.
      Or was that “coked-up, cousin-f*ing, chinless aliens”? I can never remember which.
      Best of luck to you all in the allegedly United Kingdom.
      1. That’s just the sort of comment I was hoping to avoid by agreeing with others here that there should be an amnesty on political discussions and comments for the duration. I hadn’t expected that an anecdote about a long-dead politician, relevant as it was to mention him with reference to one of today’s clues, would be taken as an opportunity unleash the hounds.

        Edited at 2015-05-11 06:57 am (UTC)

          1. Amnesty or not, thanks for the reminder of the wonderful Malcolm Tucker!
  9. Just over the 15 mark with a completely inexplicable delay over TONY.

    The surely apocryphal story about the late George Brown was that he approached a vision in red at a function in South America and asked for a dance. The vision said something like ‘No, I will not dance with you for three reasons. First, you are disgustingly drunk. Second, this music is our National Anthem and third, I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima’

    1. A great joke – and one that travels well. I have told it in three foreign languages and always with great success 🙂
  10. 16.40, if you ignore a typo that wouldn’t happen in pen and ink land. TONY my last in, despite it being a regular in those online word games, but then most of those are not real words, are they?
    I had BESMIRCHED for a while at 14 on the grounds that it used up most of the wordplay and was OK as a definition.
    It would be fun to play hunt the hidden political message with this one, with the obvious COUP D’ETAT, the wonderful reminder of George Brown, ARROGANT, MACHISMO, ANTIC, AD (subtract?) LIB, and the fabulous (can’t be a coincidence) TONY BADMOUTHED across the middle, but as Jack says, (more or less) let’s not go there.
  11. Yes Janie – I rolled the dice for BEEPER/BELPER (and completely failed to parse RESOUNDED). Knew MASSE from the NY Times puzzles. DROP SCONE is a hoot. I hope this is ok to mention but the reference that came to mind (and it’s possible it may have occurred to Vinyl too as a fellow New Yorker) had to do with the Governor of a neighbouring state whose minions dropped cones so as to close down lanes of the George Washington Bridge during rush hour for several days so as to get back at a local mayor from the other party who’d declined to endorse the gov’s re-election. It reverberates yet. And the gov looks as if he might like a scone or two. 14.6
    1. It’s good to hear a New Yorker recognise the existence of the “Sopranos” state. Most of my friends there disdain even to think of it, let alone make reference, however veiled, to it.
      1. For 23+ years of my working life, I worked for a Group based in the Garden State and spent a huge amount of time there although based in London. I got to like it.
  12. 20 minutes, mostly easy but held up by TONY and BESPEAK at the end. Knew where Belper was. CoD the drop scone. Very difficult to obey the moratorium on election comments… or pollster effects.
  13. All going swimmingly well until the SW corner, where I did not have the required GK for pretty much anything that was going on down there (although I should have got 17dn, but even with that I don’t think it would have made a heap of difference).

    Ah well – there’s always tomorrow. By the way, a cracker from The Dean in yesterday’s Sunday Times: if anyone missed it, well worth a gander.

  14. 16 mins. I know of BELPER so didn’t consider Beeper, but I have to admit that if I hadn’t known it I wouldn’t have been sure which of them to go for. If I had ever come across LENTIFORM before I had forgotten it, and it was my LOI after I finally saw the wordplay.
  15. In the 50’s where I was (never mind) ‘beaks’ would have been considered outdated. Tony = fashionable? Ouch. ‘George Brown drunk is a better man than Harold Wilson sober,’ the Times memorably put it the morning after a night before. Mctext, this forum isn’t a place for obscenities, however partially unlettered. Maybe you can’t help it. Liked the puzzle.
    1. Who, on Gough Whitlam’s death, posted a link to a dishonest character assassination of the great man, written under the guise of an obituary? That’s genuine obscenity.
      1. No: just someone wishing to refer people to what he considered a worthwhile read. An article in ‘The Economist’ is not exactly ‘Mein Kampf’. What a Manichean world you appear to inhabit. Or inhabits you.
        1. To be fair to Mctext, he’s right about that Whitlam article. I know nothing about The Economist or its reputation, but this really was an appalling piece of drivel, tastelessly timed and packaged as an obituary.
          Far more offensive than a couple of “colourful” quotes from a popular TV series in my humble opinion.

          It’s possible that from your distance you were unaware of exactly how inaccurate the article was, but if that’s the case it may have been wiser to remain aloof from the discussion.

          On the positive side, thanks for introducing me to a new word. Can’t wait to use Manichean in a sentence!

          1. ‘The Economist’ is as respected a publication in the world overall as exists, probably, for political comment. Its view on Gough Whitlam may have been very wrong in your and Mctext’s eyes but it will have been based on research and real acquaintance with the subject-matter. If it was offensive to you that doesn’t necessarily make it ‘an appalling piece of drivel’. It was soberly written, as the journal always is; and to an extent it saw both sides of the man (I take it you’ll admit there are two sides, as to everybody). What’s appalling is a tendency to use condemnatory language on a forum that’s for everyone; to assume a club of like-minded people and to spew out epithets to describe those who take another view. I’m surprised you don’t take the point.
            1. Please, I’m not offended at all by people who hold political opinions different to my own. There have been many articles published about Whitlam with which I have disagreed, without finding them offensive.

              I also know a number of people who worked closely with (and against) Whitlam. And I can assure you that not even his most strident political enemies would align themselves with that article’s characterisation of Whitlam as a person.

              Why someone would write such a piece and then choose to publish it at the time of his death is what confounds me.

              Still, I doubt that we’ll find common ground. And one thing I don’t do (I hope) is to use condemnatory language or spew out epithets on this forum.

              So until we meet again, happy solving!

              1. No indeed; I wasn’t suggesting you were the spewer. ‘The Economist’ obituaries actually tend to be rather fine evocations of the person behind the biographical facts. I didn’t rate the article in question a character assassination, though it did hark on one or two negative features. Overall I had the impression of a great, if flawed, person. But the point is how people are characterised on this site. I don’t agree that my referring people to the article, or the obituary itself, is an act of “genuine obscenity”, to quote mctext whom you defend. I don’t find it acceptable that anyone should talk of the UK government and its supporters, or come to that of the Opposition and its voters, or anyone at all, the way he does on a site like this. But thanks for the goodspiritedness of your comments.
  16. Some of this felt more like a Listener: an ancient meaning of ANTIC, LENTIFORM and MASSE. Still, the wordplay was always clear, so finished just inside 30 minutes. 22 was toss-up between BEEPER and BELPER but I trusted that the setter would have clued BEEPER as a common noun, so went for the other.

    Is it a convention that the Monday puzzle always has one entry that’s the same as the most recent Times Jumbo entry? It seems to happen very regularly.

  17. It wasn’t that I got anything wrong (for a change), but I failed to check the grid and missed the fact that I had not solved 28a. Carelessness and, no doubt, a carpeting from the beak. 16m 08s for the ones I did solve.
  18. 25:37. I wondered if any non-UK residents would be troubled by BELPER but I see that everyone looks to have negotiated that one successfully.

    I almost witnessed the rarity of a MASSE during the recent snooker world championships but sadly the player (Matthew Stevens I think) opted to play off the cushions.

  19. 16:44. I had all of the NW corner apart from TONY sorted immediately but then found myself flitting about all over the place to try and make progress.
    1. Welcome, Pootle. It is rather lovely to see, isn’t it.

      We watched quite a bit of the recent snooker, for the first time in years. ‘Interesting’ fact: my partner was rigged up with one of those 24-hour blood pressure monitors a couple of weeks ago. Lowest BP recorded, by some distance, was while sitting watching the snooker. So it’s official: watching snooker is good for you.

  21. OK – I’ll put my hand up as the one who put in BEEPER. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.
  22. One of the easiest for a long time despite guessing Belper. And Lentiform. And Ketones.
  23. Found this quite tricky coming home in just under 24 mins. LOI was TONY which I have fortunately never come across before nor ever wish to again.
  24. About 15 minutes, and I didn’t know LENTIFORM or BELPER before their appearances here. I did think of BEEPER, but it seemed too far fetched that someone would name their town with it, so BELPER, also an unlikely looking name, went in as the only alternative I could see. Regards.
  25. My new neuron appears to be bedding in quite well, as I finished this in 27 minutes. Inexplicably, the last 10 or so of those were spent on 28ac, which I couldn’t see for the life of me.

    There were a few unknowns for me. BELPER has never crossed my mind (or satnav), and I doubt it will do so again. MASSE was also new to me, but I assumed it was what a masseur did. I’d heard of BESPEAK, but not that meaning thereof.

    I would have thought “epidermal” was more correct than “epidermic”, but perhaps I’m being pedantal. In any event, it’s now late at the end of a long day, so it’s time to crack open a bottle of something acoholal and get paricytal.

      1. Often. And if I’m feeling benevolent I administer them to the patients too.
  26. 11:00 here for an enjoyable puzzle.

    No problem with TONY 🙂 or with BELPER as I’m among those old enough to remember George Brown (and to vaguely recall bigtone53’s splendid anecdote – or a variant of it).

    My thanks to mctext for his explanation of RESOUNDED, which had eluded me.

  27. With a name like Big Tone, I imagine you were treated with the utmost respect.

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