Times 26,165: Whose Minds Are Fixed On Pelf And Place

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Somewhat easier puzzle this morning than some recent offerings, which was a relief; I didn’t quite slip under the 10 minute mark myself, but that was a good thing, because I was on the cusp of biffing in {b}RISK as my LOI at 20ac and that would not have gone well.

Lots of answers to write straight in – 4ac, 5dn, 2dn, 26ac, 25ac, 22dn – but also a good few that needed careful consideration before I could feel sure of myself. 15ac took me an unconscionable amount of time to unscramble given that I joined that particular political party a few weeks ago (believe in the beard!), and with its nicely concealed definition part I think it is my COD accordingly. Not many speed bumps on the vocab front, 23ac probably being the least familiar but it did ring a bell from my French GCSE days.

All good fun in other words and a fine grid to round out the week with. Thanks setter!

Across
1 HARE – run: {s}HARE [“not having succeeded at the front” (i.e. minus S at the beginning), cut]
5 BOWDLERISE – cut the harsh words: BOWLER [cricketer] “bagging” D [500] + IS + E [“opener for” E{ngland}]
9 MONOMANIAC – cryptic def: a monomaniac is pathologically preoccupied with one single thing, i.e. not “much”…
10 SPUR – encourage: SPUR{t} [burst of speed, “being short of finish”]
11 AT RISK – expected to have problems” ASK [question] about TRI{p} [“curtailment of” holiday]
12 TERABYTE – computer storage: E [energy] after (BATTERY*) [“failed”]
14 GRIN – look happy: GRIN{d} [chore “finishing… early”]
15 THE RED FLAG – left air: F [force “initially”] in THE RED | LAG [debt, perhaps | habitual convict]
17 COLLAR STUD – cryptic def: a collar stud pins down a collar, officers of the law may “feel someone’s collar”
20 RUSH – hurry: {c}RUSH [crowd’s “heading off”]
21 SIDE-STEP – dodge: ID EST [that is] “retained in” S E P [“heads of” S{ome} E{xciting} P{layers}]
23 BLAGUE – display of humbug: BLUE [not happy] about A G [a grand]
24 ROAR – sound of crowd: R{unning} O{n} A{nd} R{ioting} [“in opening stages”]
25 CLOISTERED – like many a monastery: (SO DERELICT*) [“after Reformation”]
26 GREEN PARTY – political group: PART [some] “investing in” (ENERGY*) [“recycled”]
27 TOTE – carry: TOT E is the fifth child, i.e. the one after tots A through D…

Down
2 A POSTERIORI – affected by experience: A1 O.R. [excellent | soldiers] “including” POSTER [bill] + I [one]
3 EMOTIONAL – (I’M NOT ALONE – N) [“forgetting one name”, i.e. minus a single N, “when drunk”], semi-&lit
4 BRACKET – support: RACK [framework] “beset by” BET [risk]
5 WHISTLE-STOP TOUR – cryptic def for a type of journey “with no peeping allowed”, i.e. all whistling sounds stopped
6 LUCERNE – Swiss city: U CERN [University | nuclear research centre] in LE [the “Francophone”]
7 IMPLY – suggest: {s}IMPLY [“top may be taken off” without difficulty]
8 EERIE – curious: reverse of IRE [passion “arising”] in EE [“middle of” {w}EE{k}]
13 TRANSLUCENT – offering some light: (LANTERN’S CUT*) [“out”]
16 FIRMAMENT – heaven: FIRM AMEN T [strong | ending to hymn, perhaps | time]
18 RATE-CAP – set local limit: RATE [speed] + reverse of PAC{e} [“endlessly” “rising” speed]
19 DEBUSSY – source of music: DEBUS [abandon public transport] + S{a}Y [say, “with no place for A”]
21 SPRIG – little growth: SPRING minus N [time of growth “though not new”]
21 DRAKE – an Elizabeth knight, Sir Francis: D [Duke] “associated with” RAKE [libertine]

32 comments on “Times 26,165: Whose Minds Are Fixed On Pelf And Place”

  1. No particular hangups that I can recall, aside from sticking with ‘glum’ too long at 23ac. I count 6 clues requiring deletion of the initial or final letter (1ac, 10ac, 11ac, 20ac, 7d, 18d), and one deleting an internal letter (21d); a bit many, perhaps?
  2. Also liked ‘left air’, though that clue cost me the last ten minutes of my 33′ – just couldn’t see it. Re the bearded one, an extraordinary moment of reclamation in UK politics, whether or not it has to be ceded again.
  3. Couldn’t see the STUD part of 17ac, but threw it in as the only possibility, and got lucky. Thanks for the explanation V. I knew you could “collar” someone, but hadn’t heard “to feel someone’s collar”, so didn’t get the cryptic. Not a great clue for my money, but greatly enjoyed the rest of the puzzle.

    COD to 2ac, though I doubt that England’s openers will need to bag 500 this time around!

    Oh, and I thought that “Left air” was a nicely-disguised def.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  4. 30 minutes but put in BLANKET at 4d – no idea why. Perhaps comfort blanket?
    COD to 15a. I liked “Left air”.
    1. I also had BLANKET but fortunately saw BRACKET before I had finished.

      22:59, so back to somewhere around average for me.

  5. Just over half an hour for a pleasant enough end to the week. THE RED FLAG is very good and gets my COD vote (but sticking with 26ac). HARE last in after an alphabet hunt. Kevingregg makes a good point about the abundance of letter deletion clues.
  6. Not such a good end to the week… as I needed to cheat to get A POSTERIORI (never heard of it), and had ‘pace’ at 1ac. I figured that to add a ‘space’ to something could (almost) be to ‘cut’ it? No, perhaps not…

    Add me to the appreciation society for the ‘left air’ definition at 15ac, real penny-dropping stuff.

  7. Once again for me a promising attempt turned sour towards the end and I required aids for 2dn though I have met it before. It might have come to mind if I’d had the checker from 9ac in place but ???OMANIAC was another stumbling block until I’d cheated on 2dn. My one unknown was CERN at 6dn. Liked ‘left air’ as definition at 5ac.
  8. 22:47. I was doing well and was nearly finished after about 12 minutes, but got held up by the NW corner – not knowing A POSTERIORI and not convinced with MONOMANIAC. 1a my LOI. Thanks for unravelling 15a, which had me puzzled too. Pleased I managed to resist putting in BLANKET for 4d. 17a and 27a my favourites.
  9. 21:17 of enjoyable solving, although like Kevin, I thought while solving that there seemed to be an over-reliance on deleting first or last letters. Faced with B*A**** with ‘support’ in the clue, I thought ‘Here we go again’ but pleased to find that it was not to be.
    Thanks setter and blogger
  10. Thanks to a delay on the rattler again this morning, I managed to complete during my (extended) 50′ commute, although I admit to biffing THE RED FLAG as my LOI (only briefly preceded by 1a).

    I got hung up on Mystery Tours for 5d, until BOWDLERISE fell into place. Nice to have a cricketing clue to remind us of our impending triumph later (but not too later) today. I was looking for a clue involving a European to see if FINN would make an appearance before I finn-ished.

  11. 13 mins. I got off to a flyer when I saw BOWDLERISE and WHISTLE-STOP TOUR straight away, and I built out from there. I also noticed how many letter-deletion clues there were, but with so many four and five letter answers in the grid I’m assuming they’re easier to construct. I’m sure I must have come across A POSTERIORI before but it didn’t spring to mind readily, and it was my LOI after I saw bill=poster and MONOMANIAC at 9ac. Count me as another tipping my hat to the setter for the “left air” definition for 15ac, and I needed all the checkers before I saw it.
  12. Over an hour for me, after all bar four were done in half an hour. Thought the ‘collar stud’ clue was really ordinary, and also held up by the unknown ‘blague’ and the oft listened to ‘Debussy’. Now that’s more like a clue…
  13. From Deezzaa:
    Any puzzle I can finish in a reasonable time without resorting to aids is in my definition, satisfying.
    So I suppose this would count as one such.
    So why do I feel somewhat cheated by 17a? Where is any cryptic to “stud” or even “tud”? I see the wordplay, but I’m not that happy about it.
    However this is offset by the delightful 15a.
    1. Welcome,anon, but I think you may be confusing a cryptic definition with wordplay in another type of clue. This cryptic clue has to be taken as a whole, i.e. ‘it’ (the answer) ‘pins down what law enforcement officers agencies feel’ (collar).
    1. I didn’t think this was a particularly great clue, but I thought the ‘pins down’ part of it was OK on the basis that if you remove the front stud from one of these shirts the collar sort of springs up. At least the one I had years ago did. I inherited an old (made in the 1930s) DJ from a family member and I thought I should have one of those shirts to go with it. It certainly looked the part but lord was it uncomfortable.
      1. Like justinwestcork, this was de rigueur at my school in the 60s. As you could get up at any time that you liked but had to be present at breakfast 400 yds away at 0745, it was quite an art to lie in as long as possible. By putting on the back stud and one side of the front through shirt and collar the night before, valuable seconds were saved by just having to shove through the other side when dressing.
        Its 1600 hrs in the UK. Anyone know the cricket score?

        Edited at 2015-07-31 03:06 pm (UTC)

        1. That brings back memories, bigtone. I used to have my vest inside the mostly buttoned-up shirt and my tie already knotted, ready to go over my head after I’d ‘dived’ into the vest and shirt.
  15. 16:37, with nearly 5 minutes of that time staring at 23ac, which I just couldn’t see for the life of me. I kicked myself hard when I finally thought of ‘blue’.
    Nice puzzle, and I agree that ‘left air’ was the highlight.
  16. Like Deezza above I did not really like 17ac, mainly because collar studs don’t ‘pin down’ anything. We had to wear detachable collars at boarding school in the 70s. There were two studs involved, one that attached the collar to the shirt at the back and the other at the front, where the top button would normally be. The former left an interesting patch of hard skin on one’s neck after a few weeks. This arrangement was never comfortable, but it saved the school money on laundry – collars were changed daily, but shirts only twice a week. No wonder most teachers insisted on having the windows wide open in the classroom.
  17. Won a tight golf match, then finished this in an hour not hurrying, watching Bell and Roooooot win the test, three biffed; now I see why THE RED FLAG is right, I think it’s clever; left air, indeed. A good, enjoyable week of solving. Now to tackle the TLS with aids, to widen my scant literature knowledge.
  18. Hello all. About 25 minutes, ending with the unknown BLAGUE/DEBUSSY pair. I simply missed the last part of parsing on the latter (say without the ‘a’) so thanks for that. It had me scratching my head unsuccessfully for too long that I wrote it in unparsed, and BLAGUE simply had to be the answer despite my doubting its existence. 15a was very clever, agreed. Regards.
  19. This can refer simply to holding something in place, which is undoubtedly what collar-studs do. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with 17ac.

    Edited at 2015-07-31 04:53 pm (UTC)

  20. I always thought that to bowdlerise something was to cut out the rude words, or as Chambers says, the indelicate ones. Surely not the harsh ones.
  21. 11:16 for me, held up by an exasperating succession of senior moments in which I could see exactly what the clues demanded but just couldn’t think of the required words.

    I see I wasn’t the only one whom 17ac reminded of schooldays. Dotheboys demanded detachable collars for the same money-saving reason as justincork’s alma mater – this was Yorkshire after all! Unfortunately the regime of cold baths and early morning gym followed by pre-breakfast prep precluded any possibility of a decent lie-in, though as junior boys went first (and so had to break the ice on winter mornings – the house-master used to fill the baths and leave the windows open the night before!), you scraped a few extra minutes as you got older.

    Ah, but it made me what I am today. (Tries desperately to suppress nervous tic.)

    A most enjoyable puzzle. I join others in praise of “left air”.

  22. About an hour to complete, but with one mistake: HAVE for 1ac (S off SHAVE, and if you are “running” a fever, you have one, don’t you?).

    Some of the clues are not quite convincing — stopping the whistles doesn’t really stop the peeping, for example. And THE RED FLAG is in proper parlance perhaps a leftist air, but hardly a left one. Or maybe I’m just too tired from a week of non-stop square dancing…

      1. How silly of me, of course you’re right … I was thinking of the visual kind of peeping (with the person doing it named Tom and letting out a whistle at what he sees) and not the auditory.

        I really shouldn’t do this stuff late at night.

  23. A dozy 25 minute late evening solve, periodically coming to with a start and realising I still hadn’t put the last two letters in at 1a – ?A?E for goodness sake. I bet there’s some alternatives out there somewhere.
    MONOMANIAC with a shrug hoping there was more to it. There isn’t.
  24. Had this all bar 1a and 2d.

    As I was getting close to my station I put in A Postereoni (despite not taking into account “soldiers”) and Save (something along the lines of shave missing a letter). Didn’t think that they were right but, like blague, you never quite know.

    Still, I felt a little smug compared to the Guardian solver a few seats in front of me who only had 2 answers in after 4o mins!

    Very enjoyable puzzle, if a little over my pay grade.

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