Times 26119 – Where does the village smithy stand?

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 15 minutes

Music: Shankar, Nobody Told Me.

I believe this is a personal best, as I am not a fast solver and I had a feeling of writing in the solutions as fast as I could. The top half was about five minutes, and I only had to think a little for some of the clues in the bottom. The lack of concealment in the literals led to a lot of biffing, although I do tend to decipher the cryptic before going on to the next clue, just to make sure I am not making a bad mistake and messing up my grid.

In the past, I have been an unreliable judge of crossword difficulty, struggling with easy ones while completing puzzles of moderate difficulty without much effort. However, I think it is pretty safe to say that this one is on the easy side, even if not every clue is a write-in. It’s not often I finish a puzzle without having to flip the LP!

Across
1 MISHMASH, anagram of HAMISH’S + [referendu}M.
5 FLEECE, double definition.
8 CONTRARILY, CON + TR(A(R)IL)Y, a bit of a Russian doll.
9 TOTE, TO(T[en])E.
10 UNPROFESSIONAL, anagram of PINE FLOOR ON SUN.
11 FOPPISH, F(O + P,P)ISH.
13 CHATEAU, C(anagram of THE AA)U.
15 PORTRAY, PORT + RAY, a bit of a chestnut.
18 PROWESS, P.(ROW)E. + S.S. The S.S. had its origin as the bodyguard of a rather disagreeable individual, now deceased.
21 OVER THE COUNTER, OVERT + HE + COUNTER.
22 LIDO, hidden backwards in [croc]ODIL[es].
23 ILLITERATE, I’LL + ITERATE, with a deceivingly long literal that nearly fooled me for a moment.
24 ON SONG, ON + SON + G.
25 LISTEN IN, LIST + backwards NINE.
 
Down
1 MACDUFF, M(A CD)UFF. I nearly misremembered and bunged in MacBeth, as I haven’t read the play since grad school.
2 SANDPIPER, sounds like SANDPAPER with the ‘a’ risen. Perhaps more typical of Australian than Cockney nowadays, although this type of vocalic apophony shows up in various regional dialects.
3 MARCONI, MARCO + [m]IN[t] upside-down.
4 SCREECH, SCREE + CH, another chestnut.
5 FLY FISHER, anagram of IF FRESHLY.
6 EXTINCT, EX + TIN + CT.
7 CATALPA, CA + T + ALP A[sh]. I biffed this, but had to ponder a bit to see the cryptic, as ‘about’ seems to indicate inclosure.
12 STARTLING, START + LING, should be a chestnut.
14 EYE STRAIN, E[nglish] + YES + TRAIN.
16 OXONIAN, OX + ON + I + A + N, a write-in if you think of the right Morse. Some day they will use the wrong one. “Morse is an archaic English word for the clasp of a cope”….oops, maybe I shouldn’t be giving them ideas.
17 TREMOLO, T + RE + MO + LO, another one biffed.
18 PUCCINI, I NIC[e] CUP upside-down. I did have to use the cryptic to eliminate Bellini and Rossini, the first two who came to mind
19 OPULENT, anagram of NO LET UP.
20 SURGEON, S(URGE)ON, yet another chestnut.

52 comments on “Times 26119 – Where does the village smithy stand?”

  1. So it’s Morse the detective and not morse the walrus? I know nothing about either, so this clue was my LOI, and kept me from getting in under 8′. Did a lot of biffing (in the case of 16d, BIFWordplay), but generally twigged soon after. 1d was a giveaway, I thought. ‘Knew’ CATALPA–which is to say, it was in my mental dictionary somewhere, although I certainly didn’t know anything about its leaves. DNK ON SONG. I expect Magoo to record a negative time on this one.
    1. Kevin, I often go back through the archives to do puzzles from two or three years ago, which occasionally leads me to the comments from back then.

      Of all the solvers I recognise, you seem to have shown the most amazing improvement in solving times over a relatively short time frame. Have I got that right?

      Not meaning to embarrass you, but well done! What’s your secret?

      1. You’re very kind, but I think learning curves generally work that way: rapid climbing when one starts from near zero. My sense is that I’ve reached my asymptote. If there’s a secret, I’m not in on it.
  2. Yes, a 15-minuter, this one. CATALPA was unknown and therefore carefully assembled from the bits amongst a lot of biffing.

    My first thought on the ‘not of woman born’ clue was ‘Ah, I know, it’s someone’, which was narrowed down to Macbeth once I’d got the M and Macduff once I’d got the M*****F. Is this how Magoo does it, I wonder?

  3. For the first time in ages, I didn’t learn anything new. Even got CATALPA from its more local meaning, as per the song:
    http://folkstream.com/021.html
    Strange name for a ship, but there you go.

    1dn was a bit of fun and reminded me that my Alexander edition of the Complete Works has the typo “Duninsane”. Or was that Will’s original hidden reference to Lady M. ??

  4. An average 30-minuter for me, ending with the unknown (and suspected momble) CATALPA. I too must admit to knowing nothing of Macduff’s parentage…
  5. I’d agree most of this was pretty straightforward but there was enough in it to delay me for 25 minutes and for me to get a biffed answer wrong.

    I never heard of CATALPA and at 8ac I wrote in, but was unable to parse, CONTRARARY, which I’m very surprised to find doesn’t exist as an alternative to ‘contrary’ despite its usage being widespread in my experience, though not by me admittedly. I know nothing of the parentage of Macduff.

  6. 9:50 (yay!) … clearly a Monday puzzle.

    vinyl – your explanation of the ‘ss’ in PROWESS is a masterpiece of judgment and good taste. Thank you.

    1. I enjoyed the explanation too. But there is an alternative, which is the one I thought was meant… The United States Secret Service – “The Secret Service has two primary missions, investigation of financial crimes and physical protection of designated protectees.”
      I’ve not read Macbeth since ‘O’ level English, but remembered the quote as a key plot element. 12:53 for me, which I think is a PB. 8ac my LOI – took a while to fill the gap between CONTR and Y.
      1. Off the bat, I’d say there’s a fair bit of overlap between the two categories.
  7. 14m, so not particulalry easy for me, although not difficult either. I found the top half harder than the bottom.
    I knew CATALPA as the name of a Dutch nursery (kids, not plants) business that went bust in spectacular fashion a few years ago. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume that whoever came up with the name got it from a tree. I’ll take the knowledge where I can get it. I’m not particularly keen on ‘cut right back’ as an indication to remove all but one of the letters though.
    2dn replicates the homophone occasionally mentioned by Jimbo as the worst ever. He will be pleased.
    1. But if it’s good enough for Audrey Hepburn, not to mention Dick van Dyke, surely it’s good enough for someone actually born in the UK?
    2. Yes, I immediately pictured Jimbo with steam coming out of his ears when I saw sandpiper.
  8. Catalpas are beautiful trees. There are two or three splendid specimens in the central reservation of London’s Park Lane to be admired if you’re ever passing that way. They’re unfortunately too large to grow in a 20 foot back garden though.
  9. …which I thought was pretty good until coming here.

    In a turn-up for the books, I thought MACDUFF was as easy a clue as I’ve ever come across. But far be it from me to get into a discussion about what constitutes “required” GK! Suffice to say I’ve always thought that “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped” was one of Bill’s more memorable lines.

    Congrats to Kevin, Sotira and Vinyl on their times. Not a bad effort by the old boy from Hong Kong either.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  10. Always thought the caesarean exclusion clause was a bit of a cheat, albeit that it led to a “good outcome” (Macbeth was the sort of chap who would undoubtedly have had an SS had he thought of it before the moustachioed one).

    Top half went in rapidly (from a pedestrian solver’s perspective), but took a while to unravel the SW for reasons I now find inexplicable.

    Thanks as ever to setter and blogger.

    1. “Always thought the caesarean exclusion clause was a bit of a cheat …”

      Absolutely. This was clearly the moment when Shakespeare jumped the shark. It’s the kind of thing you get in soap operas: “Crikey, Charlene, you mean your mum was a surrogate and your actual biological mother is my auntie Pat?!”

      1. “This was clearly the moment when Shakespeare jumped the shark.”

        This is why I love this forum and it’s contributors! Classic.

      2. Well, Macbeth certainly might have asked Macduff just where he’d spent the 9 months if not a woman. ‘Caesaerean section’ is perhaps a bit anachronistic: The rule was, try to save the baby, knowing that they’d lose the mother.
  11. 11 mins. I made heavy weather of a few of the clues. If I’d seen 5ac and 8ac as quickly as I should have done I wouldn’t have wasted time on the wrong anagram fodder for 5dn, which I was seeing as “perhaps if” with “freshly prepared” as the anagrind. I was wondering what an “app fisher” or a “pap fisher” could possibly be, and the penny didn’t drop until I got CONTRARILY. Muppet. I then saw FLEECE which was definitely my Dean Martin of the day, and I finished, like others, with CATALPA which rang a distant bell once I’d deciphered the wordplay.
  12. 12:16, a PB for poking at an iPad. Would have been quicker if I had not spent time on whether you can DUFFLE someone (5ac) and if I had known CATALPA
    1. A verb “to duffle” would be a splendid addition to the English language. If usage can drive recognition of neologisms, I propose we start here and now…

      A definition would, of course, be required. The assembled wits and sages here are far better qualified than me to opine on this, but possible contenders could be

      – to head to Antwerp for a dirty weekend
      – to ostentatiously display toggles
      – to dress inappropriately on a state occasion (particularly on Remembrance Day)

      1. Antwerp? Surely there are nicer dirtier places? Or are you speaking from experience?

        Duffle – to eat prodigious amounts of stodgy pudding?

        1. Duffle (or Duffel) originates from a town of that name in the province of Antwerp.

          It is arguably more sophisticated than Brighton, but a local piece of “rock” will cost significantly more…

            1. Like it! Like an anti-momble, which I recollect is getting the wrong answer for the right reason
  13. The Macduff parentage thing is a crucial plot point in the play because the witches tell Macbeth he can’t be harmed by anyone “of woman born”. What they didn’t tell him was that Macduff was delivered by caesarian which apparently didn’t count, leaving Macbeth vulnerable to him. A level English comes in handy occasionally. 9.34. P.S. Sorry Galspray – you nipped in ahead of me.

    Edited at 2015-06-08 08:51 am (UTC)

    2. I had assumed it was a bit less of a cheat, in that Macduff was taken from his mother’s dead/dying body – I suspect caesareans were not really survivable back in those days anyway – and she would have been an ex-woman, gone to join the Mothers’ Union Celestial by the time MacD breathed his first.
    3. Just so. For years I’ve been telling callow sub editors that a baby can’t be ‘born by Caesarean section’, or the whole plot of Macbeth would fall apart. At last it comes in useful.
  14. 11:40 here, which felt a lot longer. Similarly to Andy B I felt I should have gone a lot quicker, but I was just reading the clues without any comprehension for the first few minutes.
  16. 25 minutes. Another puzzle where I felt I should have been quicker, especially after filling the NW corner in a few minutes. 1d is a giveaway if you know the play, not if you don’t. My main delay was 16. I had the right Morse, but was racking my brains to come up with his unusual first name, which eventually came to surface (Endeavour), but wasn’t much use.
    What an anagram at 10. I didn’t bother working it out as U_P was enough to throw in the answer.
  17. 25m here with most of last 10 on TOTE and the tree. Straightforward but enjoyable stuff.
  18. 6:27 – the tree was biffed although I think a vague memory of it lurks somewhere in the grey matter.
  19. About as fast as I get on a Monday morning, apart from CATALPA, which was definitely last in, and seemed to belong to a different puzzle entirely (though I usually think this when my botanical blind spot is involved). I also winced slightly at the homophone, though that may just have been from remembering the heat it has historically generated. As usual, perfectly entertaining, even with a lot of biffed answers.
  20. The easiest puzzle that I can remember which is not a good thing. You really do want something a bit chewier to get the brain working.
  21. Around 10 mins. Easiest for quite a while, I thought. LOI was CATALPA; didn’t know it, but the wordplay was clear.
  22. 11:29. For some reason I though that the mountain ash was the aspen, not the rowan, so until I ran out of places to put them I tried to squeeze in the letters ASPEN. Eventually I lifted & separated mountain and ash and cobbled together what looked like it might be a tree.

    1a made me smile with memories of H2G2, wherein Douglas Adams uses the WSOGMM, or whole sort of general mish mash, as the technical term for the sum total of all the parallel universes.

    I can’t see what “everywhere” is doing at the end of the clue for 23.

    COD to Marconi.

    1. I was going to say that but assumed it was just me so I’m glad to know I’m not alone. I can see it adds to the the surface reading but to bung in an otherwise unnecessary word, and at the very end of a clue after the definition, seems a bit dodgy to me.
  23. A clearly dozy 13.35, somewhere out in the wilderness of p5 at the time of writing.
    I was delighted to see that the CATALPA, which I cleverly constructed from the wordplay, is described as bignoniaceous. Doncha just hope that that means having large leaves?
    I think we should page Ray Winstone to give us the correct pronunciation of sandpaper. Does anyone have contact details? (or is anyone here Ray Winstone?) I doubt there’s much of a D in there, (samwich, anyone?), but I think the vowel sound might just be close enough for social engineering. Probably the nearest thing to a giraffe today, so no mock indignation from me.
  24. A little learning is a dangerous thing – knowing the rowan to be a mountain ash I spent minutes trying to contort a truncated version of it into 7dn before having to resort to an aid. So a technical DNF in 19 mins.
  25. This was finished while the coffee was brewing, so under 10 minutes but I wasn’t typing – CATALPA and OXONIAN went in from wordplay. Good puzzle for beginners with nothing too too obscure.
  26. I’m not sure whether this training video is funny or not. I found it while looking for an English/cockney translator. Sadly, it doesn’t attempt “sandpaper”.

    Edited at 2015-06-08 09:42 pm (UTC)

  27. About 15 minutes ending with OXONIAN, from wordplay. Didn’t understand the MACDUFF reference either, sorry. Can’t remember every line. And to agree with the anonymous poster from earlier, the CATALPA is a beautiful tree for about 3 weeks per year in my part of the US, including right now. Yesterday I was surprised to find myself gazing at one and saying (to myself) ‘Jeez, those leaves are huge’. True. So I biffed it right in without bothering with the wordplay. Regards.
  28. 8:18… I stumbled a bit at the end and took an age to think of OXONIAN, which is quite embarrassing since I used to be one. Still not as bad as my performance on the Sunday Times cryptic yesterday, where I took over 10 minutes I think to fill in one last 4-letter solution. Oops.
  29. 8:04 for me, faring much the same as verlaine – including the embarrassing hang-up over OXONIAN, though UNPROFESSIONALLY and PROWESS took me even longer.

    Every time I come across a CATALPA (and there are a couple of interesting specimens in Gray’s Inn Gardens which the London Gardens Online website asserts were “grown from slips brought back from Virginia in America by Sir Walter Raleigh and planted by [Sir Francis] Bacon”), I recall that this was a word I first encountered in a crossword – quite possibly one of Ximenes’s – many years ago.

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