Times 26139

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I found this significantly more difficult than yesterday’s or Monday’s, although having consumed enough wine for both Mrs K and me last evening during our celebratory dinner, I am not at my sparkling best this morning. I got as far as 14a before finding a write-in, then 11d, and the rest unravelled steadily in about 25 minutes. I had 10a from the word play but did check it afterwards to be sure.

Across
1 HEADS OFF – I saw soon enough what was going on here, but wanted to put in TEES OFF (which of course doesn’t fit) and ended up waiting for 1d to arrive before writing in the correct one. Def. sets off, take the heads off THIS > HIS and TOWN > OWN.
5 IGUANA – I (one), GUYANA = country, remove the Y (year not found); def. scaly reptile.
9 THOROUGH – Insert O = love, into THROUGH = via; def. consummate, as in ‘showing consummate ability’. A nice misleading surface.
10 RAJPUT – JAR = clash, reversed = RAJ, PUT = place; def. member of warrior caste. A top ranking Hindu chap in Northern India, apparently.
12 CANON – C, ANON = shortly, soon; def. clergyman.
13 TIN-OPENER – NOPE = definitely not, N = new, inside TIER = one drawing, in a tie; def. kitchen tool. No doubt you biffed it.
14 FRENCH POLISH – A well polished chestnut, this one; two languages; def. shine as a specialist may do.
18 TOTALITARIAN – (TO ITALIAN ART)*, anagrind ‘forms’, def. person allowing no opposition.
21 MARSEILLE – MARS = heavenly body, ELLE = a Parisienne, insert I = one, def. Frenchman’s city.
23 GRILL – G = good, ILL = bad, insert R = first letter of Regular; def. quiz.
24 ITALIC – Today’s hidden word, in (PERM[IT) A LIC]ENSEE; def. sort of letter.
25 PARAQUAT – PART = component, insert AQUA = blue, def. weedkiller. N,N′-dimethyl-4,4′-bipyridinium dichloride, banned in the EU since 2007 but still used (under restrictions) in the USA. Chemistry, for me and Jimbo.
26 GHETTO – GET TO = bug, annoy, around H = hospital; def. isolated area.
27 REHEARSE – HE = a man, inside REAR = seat, SE = S(OMEON)E vacated; def. train. Took me a minute or two to unravel this one.

Down
1 HI-TECH – HITCH = couple, insert E = police at last; def. very modern.
2 ABOUND – A = answer, BOUND = sure to be, def. to be everywhere, or &lit.
3 SCOUNDREL – SOUND = report (bang!), around C = constant, REL = regular letters of oRdEaL, def. rogue.
4 FIGHTING TALK – (TAKING FLIGHT)*, anagrind ‘getting in trouble’; def. scrapping speech. My COD.
6 GRASP – GASP = sound astonished, insert R = Republican, def. understanding.
7 APPENDIX – APP = phone software, END = design, I X = one shown by Times, def. supplement.
8 AUTARCHY – (ACTUARY H)*, anagrind ‘in a state’, def. rule applied without limitation. Another word for autocracy.
11 ONE-HORSE RACE – ONE = individual, HORSE = heroin, RACE = speed; def. the outcome’s obvious here. So was the answer.
15 ORANGEADE – RANGE = to order, inside (R)OAD = way, initially defective; E; def. a drink. I can’t just see where the final E is coming from? Thanks McText, for pointing out it is (M)ODE for way, not (R)OAD; (M)O(RANGE),A,DE.
16 STUMPING – UMP(IRE) = match official, suppressing anger (IRE), inside STING = con; def. puzzling.
17 STARGAZE – S (succeeded), (A GREAT)* around Z (unknown character); def. daydream. How one can gaze at stars in the daytime is another matter.
19 LIQUOR – Today’s homophone, sounds like LICKER = someone who beats, def. the booze.
20 CLOTHE – CLOT = fool, HE = EH? (what’s up?) reversed; def. turn out.
22 EXIST – (S)EXIST = prejudiced about women, topless; def. be.

27 comments on “Times 26139”


  1. Yes, definitely more tricky than yesterday’s or Monday’s… took about 45mins or so, WOE.

    Couldn’t parse HEADS OFF (doh!), or TIN OPENER (completely wrong footed by ‘one drawing’), and thought the Parisienne one = Mlle + I (leaving, I’ll let you work it out…). Sorry, I can’t help with the parsing of ORANGEADE.

    My error today was ABOUND, where I had ‘around’, which doesn’t really work at all.

    dnk AUTARCHY, but the letters fitted nicely.

    1. Works OK if you take “Way” to be MODE; drop the M; insert RANGE + A.

      Edited at 2015-07-01 08:35 am (UTC)

  2. After getting Q X & Z, was looking for a pangram, which helped me find 10ac for the J. However SW corner was recalcitrant, as I needed a W.
    Finished with an error, as I’d biffed in AROUND at 2dn, and didn’t spot it at pre-submit check.
  3. Back to nearer average level of difficulty today although the ancient chestnut at 14A helped. A distinct lack of imagination there setter!

    Like others biffed TIN OPENER, ONE HORSE RACE and ORANGEADE. Appreciated PARAQUAT and impressed by Pip’s knowledge of formula. Liked 22D EXIST

  4. 19:48 … major hold-up at the end with EXIST (I completely bought the “Be prejudiced against” dummy definition) and GHETTO, which for a while was impossible thanks to a half-biffed, very Cornish STARGAZY (stargazy pie is one of the least appetising dishes in creation).

    Had no idea at all how to parse ORANGEADE. Just as well it wasn’t really necessary.

    HEADS OFF is terrific.

    1. Must agree with you Sarah on the fish pie. Looks disgusting and tastes worse – should never have been licensed outside Mousehole!
      1. Funnily enough I was in Mousehole last week. The place was gridlocked on a Tuesday morning in June. They can’t all be going for the stargazy pie. Methinks the Poldark factor has already kicked in.
    2. “Starry gaze” pie makes an appearance in Penhallow by Georgette Heyer (yes I know and actually it’s an awful book unlike her others). I made the mistake of googling an image of it – eeew. My late mother-in-law was nuts about Robin Ellis – the original Poldark.
  5. Defeated today by 10a. After 15 mins (mostly spent thinking the answer was P inside a 5 letter word for clash), guessed RAWPUT. Would have been about 41 minutes but for the wrong letter. Couldn’t parse ORANGEADE or GRILL. 1a had me stumped for a while until I spotted the missing letters. Very clever. But talking of STUMPING, my COD was 16d – clearly a cricket match official.
  6. Thanks for parsing HEADS OFF and TIN OPENER Pip – they defeated me. 20.30 with a very slow start.
  7. A nicely balanced puzzle. Like others, I thought we were heading for a pangram and that led me to the J in 10A. Instead we had every car in the garage apart from a VW!
  8. …or a truckload of Magoos. And needed aids to get GHETTO (not sure why, it was a totally fair clue) so actually a DNF.

    Also didn’t parse TIER or ORANGEADE, so not my best effort.

    Good puzzle though, thanks setter and blogger.

  9. Took 45 minutes over this, over double yesterday’s time. No real problems, just slow. RAJPUT has appeared recently in some other puzzle, and having spent a month in India a while ago that was a gift.
    Like Sotira, my hold-up at the end was EXIST. Excellent clue, as were a number of others.
  10. A DNF under competition conditions. I should have left it until later in the day because I was running short of time when I started it, and I hate solving under pressure, self-imposed or otherwise. I seemed to be way off the setter’s wavelength, and the HEADS OFF/HI-TECH crossers were a pair of Dean Martins. After 29 mins I needed to finish so I decided that in a competition I would have entered “rawput” at 10ac, but it didn’t look right so I used aids to find the correct RAJPUT. For some reason “jar” hadn’t occured to me, and because I wasn’t looking for a pangram I hadn’t thought of a J.
    1. I agree with you. ‘Drawer’ for ‘a person who draws (a match)’ is a bit of a non-word but I think the question mark would cover this slightly whimsical element.
  11. Far too difficult for me in my current mode but I eventually managed all but two clues before resorting to aids. Didn’t know AUTARCHY or RAJPUT (neither does this spell checker)and that they intersected might have added insult to a feeling of injury if I were remotely paranoid.
  12. No exact time, but fairly quick – this and the Guardian together took approx 25 minutes. I suppose I’d have got there eventually if I was blogging, but I didn’t parse ORANGEADE while solving. I got RAJPUT from definition then confirmed the wordplay, but had no problems parsing TIN-OPENER. LOI MARSEILLE after misreading the clue.
  13. 12m, so for me this wasn’t that different from the last couple of days, although I seem to have been well off the pace so far this week. I was slowed down a bit at the end by EXIST (for the same reason as sotira: good clue) and my last in, RAJPUT. I considered RAWPUT but it didn’t look very likely so I kept thinking.
    Quite a lot of biffing today, but balanced by a few obscurities that needed construction from wordplay.

    Edited at 2015-07-01 12:00 pm (UTC)

  14. Solved under time pressure in 15.16, though skipped the parsing of ORANGEADE and TINOPENER. With all the other big boys in place, looking for the X gave me my LOI EXIST, but failed to notice the missing Beetle. Liked the construction on 1a.
  15. Found this quite difficult, but got there in the end, though I notice that, having correctly guessed the unknown RAJPUT, I have actually written in JARPUT, so a technical DNF. Agree with Rory above that ‘seen in a drawer’ (kept in a drawer/put in a drawer/placed in a drawer) makes for a much smoother surface at 13a.

    Edited at 2015-07-01 01:47 pm (UTC)

    1. Here then you’d need drawer to mean a person drawing (a match), and I can’t yet find a dictionary OK for this meaning of drawer, although it’s a logical derivation from draw = tie. I think the clue is better as it is!
      1. I thought that if ‘one drawing’ could be someone who ties, then so could ‘a drawer’. Perhaps I’m missing something.

        Kitchen tool, definitely not new, in middle of shelf.

        Edited at 2015-07-01 03:15 pm (UTC)

  16. This one took a few quick sessions – I was doing some cleaning and kept peeking back at a few clues. PARAQUAT from definition but ORANGEADE was a biff (such a question marky biff I wrote it in so lightly I couldn’t read some of the letters later on). Must be saving the stinker for… gulp… tomorrow
    1. I thought this was the stinker! Finally finished in 1h10, and was pleased with myself for persevering. Time spent mostly on EXIST, RAJPUT, PARAQUAT and LIQUOR.
  17. A sluggish 12:38 for me. Looking back, there was nothing there to give me any problems so I’m going to put my slow time down to the heat. In a number of cases (1ac, 12ac, 26ac, 16dn, 19dn) I could see exactly what the wordplay was aiming at, but just couldn’t seem to work out the answer until I had some crossing letters.

    I fared rather better with 10ac, spending a few seconds trying (and failing) to remember the word KSHATRIYA, before having a go at the wordplay, spotting PUT as a likely ending and then getting RAJPUT from the definition.

  18. Solved it quite quickly for me (I.e. under half an hour) but like others biffed ORANGEADE. Only got RAJPUT because I thought the pangram was still on the cards at that point, and considered J.

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