Times 26181 – pot pourri

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I found this a curious mixture of the ridiculously easy and the subtle and difficult. I had it completed in about 17 minutes over the usual tea and toast, but it took me a while longer to unravel some of the detailed parsing; in that sense it’s a biff-fest. I wouldn’t have been able to spell the name of the battle correctly either, without the anagram fodder and being told it had 13 letters not 12.

Across
1 PROROGUE – PRO = tart, ROGUE = fraudster, def. stop meeting. Usually applied to parliaments and the like, meaning to suspend but not dissolve.
6 AMBUSH – (I)AMBUS = foot with first amputated, H = hospital, def. surprise. I knew a bit about iambic pentameters once.
9 PASSCHENDAELE – Anagram of (H LANDS ESCAPEE); def. battle. The sensible Belgians now spell it Passendale, famous for its tasty cheese.
10 GIGOLO – GO (turn) after GI (soldier), LO (look), def. escort.
11 NOONTIDE – All reversed EDIT (correct) NO (number) ON (over); def. lunchtime, maybe.
13 RED ADMIRAL – RED = angry, ADMIRAL = naval officer, def. flier, butterfly.
15 AWRY – WARY = cautious, swap first 2 letters; def. out of position. I had the wordplay the wrong way round at first and entered WARY until I solved 12d.
16 TAXI – TAX = charge, I, def. carrier.
18 LOGISTICAL – LOCAL = in the neighbourhood, insert GIST I (main point, I); def. dealing with supply.
21 BLINDING – Sort of double def; very bright, and one may blind someone with science, as they say.
22 BEGGAR – EGG = one pickled, in BAR = pub, and beggars can’t be choosers, as they say.
23 VIRTUAL MEMORY – Cryptic definition, not very cryptic though.
25 ARABLE – A RABBLE = a mob, remove one B(ritish); def. farmland.
26 SHEATHED – Insert HEAT = warmth, into SHED = building, def. safely stored.

Down
2 REPRISE – REP = salesman, RISE = more money, def. extra performance.
3 RESTORATION – REST the ORATION is to give speechifying a break; The Stuarts enjoyed the Restoration of the monarchy after the Cromwell and Commonwealth carry-on.
4 GECKO – OK = good, C = start to climb, EG = say; all reversed; def. I can walk across the ceiling?
5 ELEANOR – E = first to encourage, LEAN = tend (as in lean towards), OR = soldiers; def. queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the most amazing women of all time, IMO.
6 ANDROCLES – AND = also, ROLES = parts in drama, insert C (about); def. lion-tamer. Originally a 2nd century story about an escaped slave and a lion, with various embellishments and amendments, not least GBS’s play.
7 BYE – Double def; goodbye, I’m off, and a run in cricket when the batsman has failed to hit or pad the ball. Today’s cricket clue.
8 SPENDER – Cryptic def; Stephen Spender, poet, 1909-95.
12 TRADING POST – DING = ring, in TRAP (gin); O, ST = no way; def. remote place of business.
14 MULTITUDE – ULT = last month, inside (TEDIUM)*; def. great number.
17 ALL OVER – (G)ALLO(P) = poll, outsiders excluded; VER = very, shortly; def. concluded. EDIT: Apparently the US polling company is Gallup not Gallop, so to get ALL O the ‘poll’ is a (B)ALLO(T), see below comment. Was that today’s deliberate error, you wonder?
19 GOGGLES – Double definition.
20 ANALYSE – AN, A = articles, LSE = college, insert Y = intelligently at last; def. deconstruct.
22 BREVE – The much quoted cockney is supposed to pronounce BREATHE like breve, I assume; a long note, as long as two semibreves.
24 RUB – Double definition, Aladdin’s advice, rub the lamp, and difficulty as in ‘aye, there’s the rub’.

53 comments on “Times 26181 – pot pourri”

  1. I agree with Pip – mostly very easy but with the odd quirk along the way

    I also had WARY rather than AWRY and wonder if the clue wording is a bit ambiguous

    Always good to see the very long lived and devious ELEANOR making an appearance nearly 1,000 years after she lived!

  2. Another with WARY at 15ac. That seemed like the logical reading of the clue given the positions of the two competing definitions. But again, T-W-I-G at 12dn didn’t seem to lead to anything likely.

    Now (ignorable by others) for the pedants out there. Purely technically if not in common usage (re 20dn) deconstruction and analysis are not the same thing. Deconstruction means showing that, for example, a thesis or argument relies on a hidden premise (or several hidden premises) which contradict or at least partially undermine it. This is different from (though it can be cognate with) analysis which means breaking down, again for example, a thesis or argument into its constituent parts; as per chemical analysis. Deconstruction is not confined to literary or philosophical procedures but can encompass, for example, some (but not all) logical-mathematical procedures for the location of paradoxes in axiomatic systems such as Tarski’s undefinability theorem.

    (Deep breath.)

    Edited at 2015-08-19 08:47 am (UTC)

  3. …a lot of which was spent trying to arrange the anagrist for 9ac. DNK the battle, so eventually resorted to aids.

    Almost went awry on 15ac, before going AWRY. Need to be wary of these clues, but in this case I reckon it’s just plain wrong. Easily resolved once the first checker went in though.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

    1. Agreed. AWRY might better be clued as “Out of position, being cautious when first pair swapped”. Could this be an editing glitch?
  4. At 17a I had (B)ALLO(T) instead of (G)ALLO(P) and I had WADI for TAXI at 16a. Explosive charge laid down (WAD) + I giving a carrier (No, I agree). 25 minutes with one wrong.
  6. 20d reminds me of the old joke, ‘What do you get when you cross a mafia hitman with a deconstructionist?’ ‘An offer you can’t understand.’

    39 minutes with quite bit of biffing and a not to my mind very awry ‘wary’ at 15a. BREVE woz my fave, natch.

    Edited at 2015-08-19 08:38 am (UTC)

  7. 27:43. I saw PASSCHENDAELE quite early but couldn’t actually spell it until I had all the crossers in. Might have been easier with pen and paper but being on the ipad I couldn’t do the anagram in my head.

    LOI was BLINDING which held me up considerably, requiring a trawl through the alphabet to get it.

  8. Breve was funny. Don’t see the confusion with regard to “awry”——makes perfect sense. Think the use of “noontide” might have disappeared shortly after the publication of Spenser’s Faerie Queene.
    1. The confusion arises because it makes sense either way, and the word ‘being’ in the middle doesn’t give much of an indication as to which answer is intended.
      1. There might be a confusion for the second or two before you realise that “trading” is spelt with an a and not a w.
        1. Oh, I see your point. Of course there’s no confusion once you have the checking letter, but without it either answer works. The problem I had was that after confidently entering WARY I wasted time looking for a word that fitted T_W_I_G.

          Edited at 2015-08-19 12:26 pm (UTC)

          1. I think the compiler knew exactly what he was doing and the editor recognised that. Just a bit of fun.
              1. That seems to be becoming the standard get-out these days (see recent ST postings). When a setter writes a lousy clue it’s our fault for not appreciating the intended humour!
    2. I’d like to hear how you think the clue logically works, as written, for “AWRY.”

      Edited at 2015-08-19 02:34 pm (UTC)

      1. Meaning that “cautious” becomes “out of position” when its first two letters are reversed. i.e.. “Wary” becomes “awry”.
        1. The clue says you want a word meaning “cautious” that changes to “awry” if you swap the first two letters. If there are any rules at all to this game, this clue does not say you are looking for a word that means “out of position” that will change to a word meaning “cautious” if you change those letters. “Being out of position when…” says the mystery word changes to another word meaning “out of position” under the stated condition. Therefore, AWRY is not the *identity* of the word sought. —guy du sable
          I edit the cryptic puzzle at The Nation, and I am sure that at least our setters Joshua and Henri would agree w me.
  9. 16m, slowed down by not knowing how to spell the battle (there seemed to be too many letters) and entering WARY at 15ac. I’m always careful with those clues so I was pretty sure of myself and it took a while staring at 12dn before I reconsidered. I think it can be read either way but AWRY is more forced.
    1. I can’t figure out any way to read it that would indicate the definition is not “cautious” but “out of position.”

      Edited at 2015-08-19 02:33 pm (UTC)

      1. You have to read the word ‘being’ as meaning something like ‘becoming’.
        For the answer to be WARY you have to read ‘being’ as something like ‘that would be’, so it’s a little bit forced either way.
        1. I disagree. With “Cautious” as the definition, distinct from the wordplay following, it’s a perfectly unforced clue for “WARY.”
          It says the answer is a word meaning “cautious” that is, or becomes, (a word meaning) “out of position” when you perform the indicated swap.
          Nothing in the construction of the clue indicates that “out of position” is the definition. If you take “Being” to be a way of saying, “Your definition is…”, then your definition is, in toto, “out of position when first pair swapped,” i.e., WARY.
          1. I don’t think it’s that clear-cut: you can apply ‘when first pair swapped’ to either ‘cautious’ or ‘out of position’ and the cryptic syntax still works.
            1. But “being” doesn’t say “out of position” is the definition. That’s the indication that is missing.
              “Being” is part of the wordplay, not the definition.
              “When” is conditional. “Cautious” is placed in the only logical spot for the definition here.
              1. ‘Being’ isn’t part of the wordplay or the definition: it’s a link word drawing the equivalence between the two. The definition is either ‘cautious’ or ‘out of position’. The wordplay is either ‘cautious when first pair swapped’ or ‘out of position when first pair swapped’.
                Consider these two sentences:
                > Green being blue when yellow added
                > Blue being green when yellow added
                Each makes sense (kind of) and the meaning is identical.
                1. Ignoring checkers, if the answer was WARY, this clue would pass without comment. Standard Times Cryptic cluing.

                  To get to AWRY we need to perform some contortions, including having the definition in the middle of the wordplay, which I think is just about unheard of.

                  Fortunately, we do have a checker to resolve things, although clearly not to everyone’s satisfaction!

                  1. Definitions in the middle of the wordplay are rare, but not unheard of. Here’s one from a past Times puzzle (thank you Google):
                    > Stink as this gun is brought to church (4)
                    Otherwise I completely agree with you that WARY is a far more natural reading of the clue. But I think it does (just about, and clumsily) work as a clue for AWRY.

                    Edited at 2015-08-19 04:40 pm (UTC)

                    1. Here, the word “this” clearly tells you that the answer is a “gun.” Definitions in the middle are indeed rare but not impossible.

                2. Blue is a primary color, not green w yellow added. Is everyone losing their minds?! Ha. If either of your sentences were a clue, the only possible definition would be the first word. “Being” links the definition to the wordplay, or, here, the gloss.
                  —Guy du Sable
                  1. By this logic the phrase ‘tea being cool when milk added’ can ONLY mean that if you add milk to cool, you get tea.

                    Edited at 2015-08-19 08:03 pm (UTC)

                    1. That is not remotely a parallel construction.
                      Is that supposed to be a clue? What kind of answer could it have?
                      1. It’s an identical construction. It’s not supposed to be a clue, just an illustration of the way the syntax work. But I give up.
                        1. IMHO, you already gave up when you decided this clue was somehow passable.
                          It’s not a parallel “construction” unless it’s supposed to work as a clue, for a real word, in the real world.
                          And “add milk to cool” (not your phrase but your gloss on it) wouldn’t mean to add a word meaning “milk” to a word meaning “cool” unless this is supposed to be some kind of clue.
                          I would say that if, in some hypothetical world, “Tea being cool when milk is added” were a clue, the definition would have to be “Tea” or “when milk is added”–if we had a word for that. Unless, of course, it’s an &lit! I sure can’t see any way the definition could be “cool” or “milk.”

  10. I’m a bit late on parade today, so most has already been said. Took for ever to see my LOI, BLINDING, though for some time it had been my best guess from the options available that I could think of.

    One correction, Pip, you had the right answer to the clue as written at 15ac before being forced to change it to the wrong one in order to fit the surrounding grid. That’s two consecutive days we’ve had a dispute over the four-letter word at the end of the 7th row. Is this a new editorial policy, I wonder?

    Edited at 2015-08-19 09:56 am (UTC)

  11. A curious mix indeed – and as for spelling the battle, even with all the handy anagram letters – 14 mins exactly with for some reason the ‘old friend’ at 7d being the last one in.
  12. 23:37. Had no idea how to spell the battle until I got all the checkers in. Tried, but (not surprisingly) failed to get 22a to be HOBSON on first read through. I can see how some might object to 15a, but I waited for 12d to decide which to put in.
  13. Having done pretty well all the quick cryptics (trying to learn for the main cryptic) I am pretty sure “h” has not been introduced as a synonym for horse- why would it? I’m not sure I’d have got the battle but at least I would have had the right number of letters to play with
    Noel
    1. H has always been used as a synonym for horse in the cryptic. Why? I’m not sure.
    2. It’s listed in the Concise Oxford which as far as I’m aware is one of the two (or possibly three now) official sources for daily Times crosswords.
      1. I didn’t know that H was given as a straight abbreviation in Oxford so I’ve always assumed this was a reference to heroin!

        Edited at 2015-08-19 01:16 pm (UTC)

        1. Yes, it is. Horse is one of many words for heroin and H is a recognised abbreviation.
          1. “h” is commonly used for “horse” in racing form guides, in Australia at least. “Horse” in this case meaning a male entire over four years of age, as opposed to a colt, gelding, rigg, filly, mare, etc.
  14. I have always assumed the h=heroin=horse explanation is the correct one. But ‘h’ does stand for ‘horse’ in ‘hp’ (horsepower)
    1. That’s true, but there’s a convention, if it’s not actually a rule, that doesn’t allow single letters to be used in that way.
  15. Took me 16 minutes something as well with a few clues holding me up for ages at the end – BLINDING took me forever. Count me as another person who thinks the clue definitely looks as though it should lead to WARY, which was very cruel when TRADING POST didn’t have the most obvious wordplay to set us back on the straight and narrow.

    My claim to fame is that I could spell PASSCHENDAELE confidently as soon as I spotted it, and I can even tell you why: it’s in a passage from Ward Moore’s alternate history novel “Bring The Jubilee” that has always stuck with me:

    The Church knew there was no halting Progress; but slowing it, slowing it even by half a century, giving man time to reach a little higher toward true Reason; that was the gift she gave this world. And it was priceless. Did she oppress? Did she hang and burn? A little, yes. But there was no Belsen, No Buchenwald. No Pass­chendaele.

  16. 13 mins. My only biff was TRADING POST after I changed “wary” to AWRY. Count me as another clever clogs who got PASSCHENDAELE immediately, mainly because of a keen interest in the Great War. My LOI was actually BREVE which I’m sure will have some of you shaking your heads, and my POI was BLINDING which I thought was a very deceptive clue.
  17. Well, it certainly sounds like many of us had a shared experience with this. I knew the battle immediately but needed the checkers to spell it, WARY in at first until I biffed TRADING POST, and LOI BLINDING. I don’t know anything of ‘blinded with science’, however, so another one biffed. About 20 minutes all told. Regards to everyone.
  18. I am another who entered WARY and still think it fits the clue better. LOI was BLINDING like many others here. However, as a cab driver, I’m ashamed to admit I had considerable difficulty with TAXI ! Must sharpen up before the Championship arrives. (Phil Jordan)
  19. A comparatively rare DNF for me, completely unable to see the word BLINDING. In desperation I bunged in GLINTING, though without any real hope of success. With hindsight the answer seems, er, blindingly obvious.

    I’m another who was held up by 15ac. Since the clue leads so naturally to WARY, I find it hard to justify its use for AWRY.

    I made fairly short work of the rest of the puzzle, but, like Phil Jordan (hello there, Phil), I clearly need to raise my game before the Championship.

  20. What setter in his or her right mind, when there is the choice between cluing a word with a good clue with a sound natural parsing, and cluing it in a way where the parsing is tortuous and arguably unsound, will choose the latter? The clue as published is quite obviously a mistake and someone should come forward and apologise for it.

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