Times 26182 – what marque of motor you driving then?

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 16 minutes on the dot, with most of that time being spent in the top left corner – everything else seemed to go in on a first or second reading.

For those of you keeping score, I’m swapping a week with z8b8d8k, he’ll be with you the next two Thursdays.

Not sure I’ve got a lot else to stay here, though some flash floods in Charlotte just had the bizarre effect of me being on a flight for two hours, then sitting on the tarmac at the arrival airport for nearly four hours waiting for weather conditions to improve enough for a gate to be opened.

Away we go….

Across
1 MONUMENT: MOMENT(significance) containing MU
5 HOBB(y),IT
10 ROUEN: (garde)N with ROUE(rake) first
11 LAUDATORY: A in LUD(bishop), followed by A TORY Edit: it appears from comments that we can’t have LUD for bishop so this is A in LAUD, and TORY
12 UNSPARING: PARING(cutting back) after UN,S
13 GISMO: or GI’S MO
14 SAVOURY: UR in SAVOY
16 DUFF(dessert),ER
18 INSECT: IN SET containing C(ounty)
20 GLEE(part-song),FUL(l)
22 CREDO: RE in C,DO
23 LOAN SHARK: sounds like LONE and a nurse SHARK
25 CHILDHOOD: L in CHID,HOOD
26 ALIBI: 1 after (BAIL)*
27 ANGLER: ANGER surrounding (sitwel)L, referring to Izaak Walton
28 BEHEMOTH: or BE HE MOTH?
 
Down
1 MARQUE(make of car),SS
2 NOUNS: NOUS containing N
3 MINIATURE POODLE: (UNIT,MARIE)* followed by D in POOLE
4 NULLIFY: U then FILL(charge) reversed in NY
6 ORANGE FREE STATE: double definition
7 BOOK,SHE,L(ibrarians),F(illed)
8 THYMOL: (MY,LOT)* around H
9 LUGGED: double definition based on LUG being slang for ear
15 VENEERING: VEN then sounds like EARRING
17 BLOKEISH: (BOLSHIE)* around (wor)K
19 T(rouble),ALLOW
20 GRANDEE: RAND inside G(key),E,E(Europeans)
21 ACACIA: A1, then two CA’s all reversed – odd to see the plural used in two clues in a row
24 A,MIG,O

53 comments on “Times 26182 – what marque of motor you driving then?”

  1. Except for a bit of a lag in the top left. Couldn’t quite get 3dn which didn’t help. I was looking for a resort made up of “Dog unit Marie D in”; which is probably the intended distraction.

    Never heard of Walton (the angler) until recently. Now he’s unlikely to be forgotten.

    George: at 21dn, the CAs (not ACs) are reversed.

    Edited at 2015-08-20 05:39 am (UTC)

  2. put in ‘tugged’ at 9d; DNK ‘lug’=ear. Pity that, since it was a nice time for me otherwise. This is the 2d Tolkien reference this week, no? and the 2d Walton reference; does this mean something? At 11ac, I took the archbishop to be LAUD; does one address archbishops as M’lud as well as judges?
  3. about 30 mins while eating dinner

    the nymber of the puzzle is wrong on the tit early buffed marquise before i saw the ship

      1. no alcohol at all. it looked fine when i typed it on my ipad but LJ was in a huff or something
  4. Should have been quicker, but got bogged down in the Broome corner after a carelessly-entered BARONESS at 1dn.

    Some very easy clues today, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  5. 17 minutes, but did a Kevin at 9d despite knowing that lug = ear.

    Re William Laud, parliament could only rid themselves of this troublesome priest by bill of attainder, a royal pardon being of limited use when the King is stuck in Oxford and you’re in the Tower.

  6. 25 minutes with UNSPARING as my LOI after a few moments panic that I was going to be taken over 30 by a single clue yet again.

    I agree with kevingregg that 11ac is A (article) enclosed by [penned by] LAUD (archbishop) + TORY (one with right-wing views).

    Edited at 2015-08-20 04:56 am (UTC)

  7. 13:18 … raced through all except the NE corner, then rather ground to a halt. MONUMENT, MARQUESS and the dog took ages to click.

    You have my sympathies, George. Being trapped for hours in a hot, stuffy plane after your flight is psychological torture.

  8. Nothing much here to slow a dedicated solver down: I did it under fairly ideal circumstances for me, i.e. at 1.30 in the morning, my insides warmed from a night of booze and junk food, and as such managed to skirt PB territory with 5:21 on the clock.

    GISMO always looks wrong to me, I’m a Z-in-it man.

    1. Great time, verlaine. Leader in the clubhouse with (I think) one big name still out on the course …
      1. Well, let’s face it, Magoo was never going to come up wanting, when the chips were down, was he?
  9. The right side was definitely completed in sub-PB pace but the left was somewhat slower taking me over the 10 minute mark to 11:50. Still a quick time for me.
  10. No real hold-ups, just 18:20 of steady screenpoking. Some nice clues I thought, in particular the misdirection in 3D. Thank you setter and George.
  11. As easy as most others found it with only 3D misleading me for a time – good clue

    Locals are avoiding Poole at the moment as the Cherbourg Ferry is apparently doing record business as commercial traffic avoids Calais – probably happening further down the coast as well

    1. I didn’t know Poole was now a ‘resort’; port, yes, modernised, yes (I remember the coal cranes and the smelly gas works), but not exactly Bournemouth.
        1. Ah well, Sandbanks, Shell Bay, yes, I suppose technically in Poole… you have a point; like Rockley caravan park if it’s still there, but when I used to cycle to Sandbanks as a kid it didn’t smell like Poole!
          1. Lots to be said for Poole as a resort actually. Brownsea Island in Poole harbour, now owned by the National Trust, is one of the very few places in England that is still home to red squirrels, though their numbers there were down to about 200 at the last count.
  12. I made very heavy weather of this straightforward crossword.

    I am sure that I have stayed in Montaigne Durdle (I believe that is twinned with Yakutsk).

  13. No problems today after going awry yesterday and in that vein Sotira won’t be my navigator in the Dakar rally.
    1. Oh, bother. And I’ve always rather fancied a shot at the Dakar … I do make excellent sandwiches and have prior experience of brewing tea in the desert, so don’t completely rule me out. We can work on the navigation thing.
      1. Ok,perhaps I was being a tad picky. A Toff drives on his stomach …you’re hired!

        Edited at 2015-08-20 10:10 am (UTC)

  14. 11 mins but with an extreme piece of muppetry that I didn’t correct until after I checked what turned out to be my incorrect answer in my Chambers. I’d done all but 15dn in about 9 mins and then my brain froze. I went with “vennering” on the basis that the wordplay could lead to a homophone of “ven a ring”, and the definition was a back-formation from Venn diagram, which of course contains overlapping (so overlaid) circles. When my Chambers showed me there was no such word I glanced up, saw “veneer”, and the penny dropped. Eejit.
  15. Nicely put together puzzle on the easier side of things. Like others, I was most misled by the excellent 3d, where my brain was desperately trying to think “What’s that place which is like Budleigh Salterton but isn’t it?” After reading comments here, I realise I was clearly thinking of Montaigne Durdle, which I expect is near Lyme Regis.
  16. I noticed that there were 13 double letters in this crossword. I cannot see a pattern or anagram.

    Is this normal?

  17. Can’t decide whether to call this one old-fashioned or just ‘chestnut’ filled. Either way, I too was held up by the poodle and so finished in 8:58.
  18. Like others, the very good misdirection in 3d held me up. Nice puzzle that should have been easier for me. I used to live in Poole.
  19. 8m, solving on paper for a change because I didn’t want to bring my iPad to the Oval. Nothing much to discuss today, thankfully, but an enjoyable puzzle. 3dn was a neat piece of misdirection.
    1. Enjoy the cricket K. Looks like the mad buggers are trying to stretch it out to four or five days. What do they think this is, a Test match?
      1. I gave my son-in-law a ticket for Sunday, so I dropped Smithy a line asking them to go slow. Probably rain anyway.
        1. Not so sure about that. This is the first pitch of the series that has offered an even contest between bat and ball from the start. As a result we’re seeing some proper Test cricket, with rewards for batsmen and bowlers who apply themselves. Fortunes fluctuating at the moment, either team could be on top at the end of the day. Great stuff.

          (Although I can see how all out for 60 might have been fun to watch. For those of us who weren’t hiding behind the couch).

          Edited at 2015-08-20 04:28 pm (UTC)

          1. Fair points, but 1) I’m English and 2) for me at least the finer points get lost when you’re actually there: bucketloads of runs and/or bucketloads of wickets make for a better day. But I’m a bit of a cricket philistine.
            There was a good atmosphere though, and when the whole ground stood up for Michael Clarke it was a nice moment.
  20. I enjoy reading others comments, but when you start talking cricket I get totally bamboozled. As for the puzzle, 15 minutes, relatively straightforward, LOI was THYMOL, with which I’m not familiar. It was a guess as opposed to ‘thylom’, which appeared far more unlikely. Most burnt brain matter occurred on UNSPARING, where ‘society’=’S’ always escapes me. Otherwise, not much comment from me. Regards.
  21. Nice reasonably solvable puzzle. Did not know THYMOL, but the cryptic signposting was pretty clear. LOI was 3D, which, as for quite a few others it would seem, led me up several dead-end garden paths before the light dawned. Good bit of misdirection.

  22. Glycerine of thymol was a product of choice, a cure-all for sore throats and other respiratory conditions in my childhood in the 1950s, so I had no problem with 8dn.
  23. Defeated by veneering, which is annoying as it was definitely biffable and I was on for a time of 35 minutes. Just couldn’t see it and dnk ven.

    I had already biffed in monument (dnk meaning of moment), unsparing (thought society = ring & couldn’t quite work back from there), childhood (dnk chid), angler (dnk Walton) & gleeful (dnk glee).

    Still I come away from this with an armful of new words and meanings, so that’s progress as well as the fact that I’d never have got this far six months ago.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

    1. Congratulations on your near miss. I think VENEERING was last or near last for many of us. ‘Moment’ is besyt knwon from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech:

      ‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
      And thus the native hue of resolution
      Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
      And enterprises of great pith and moment
      With this regard their currents turn awry,
      And lose the name of action.’

      1. I have Henry IV at RSC to contend with next month…am not a scholar and am worried it’s out of my league. Will probably let it wash over me and nod in the important bits.
  24. Should really have been quicker, but enjoyed the puzzle. For some unaccountable reason, having got the third letter of 1a by solving 2d, I convinced myself that 1a was going to be ‘cenotaph’, and when one gets a daft idea into one’s head, it can be hard to shift it. I also thought that ‘blokeish’ was spelled without an ‘e’, but the anagram fodder was clear enough.
  25. 7:05 for me, so better than yesterday, but slow for such a chestnut-filled (thanks, crypticsue) offering.

    Like others I was held up by 3dn, not helped by wasting time trying desperately to remember the two-word south coast resort where The French Lieutenant’s Woman is set. (And failing miserably, the only place name coming to mind being LEAMINGTON SPA!) I was slow to get SAVOURY and VENEERING as well.

  26. Twenty-six minutes, which is about my average, though it felt quicker. I was unconvinced by GISMO (with an S? Really??), but left it in and was surprized to find it correct.

    Slightly held up by initially putting “adulatory” for 11ac instead of LAUDATORY, but I was then pleased to note that these are synonymous anagrams. One day I will find an example of synonymous palindromic anagrams, no doubt.

    ALIBI didn’t feel right to me. As far as I know, an ALIBI is not a justification – it’s proof that one wasn’t in a particular place at a given time. Am I wrong about this?

    1. Collins gives the second (non-legal) sense of ‘justification’. By an odd quirk, this sense came up again in Friday’s Concise.
      1. I’m pretty sure that Collins was compiled post-hoc by a crossword compiler, but many thanks for the clarification.
  27. 17:20 for me and done the following morning. Not much I can add, having similar experiences to others… looking for resort for 3d, NW corner needing more thought and last in 14a and 15d. Nice to see the obligatory cricketing clue at 18d leading to a non-cricketing answer.
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