Times 26193 – well, I liked it.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
This was another puzzle which at first sight had me wondering if I should give up my Wednesday self-mutilation sessions, but in due course yielded both the answers and some wry smiles, taking me half an hour or so in total, either side of an unplanned excursion into town. Our colonial friends may find a couple of UK-centric clues, but nothing which can’t be deduced from wordplay. And 29a has to be the COTW, so far?

Across
1 IMPEACHES – SEMI (half) reversed around PEACH (tree); def. charges.
6 BUCKS – Double def. I toyed with BUNGS as in throw someone some money, but it would have to be BUNG not bungs. Must be the transfer window closing, on my mind. And still Arsene Wenger hasn’t sorted the problems.
9 PRESTON – P (start to propagate) REST ON (lie across); def. city. Preston, Lancs., I remember, was elevated to city status a few years ago.
10 RUSSELL – Bertrand, sounds like RUSTLE = soft sound.
11 SHARD – SHARED (divided in two) remove the E; def. tall building, erected in London.
13 AMBULANCE – A MB (doctor) U(se) LANCE (knife); &lit., or ’emergency in this?’
14 OUT-OF-DATE – Double def; I spent a while looking for something more subtle before I had *A*E.
16 WIRY – WRY = twisted, around I; def. flexibly strong.
18 FIRE – I thought this was a bit weak; a sort of double def.
19 AS YOU WERE – (SEE OUR WAY)*, anagrind ‘to replace’; def. order. Once you see it’s an anagram, you’re nearly there.
22 SOAP OPERA – OAP (pensioner) inside reversed A REPOS(E) = a short rest; def. to watch this. or &lit. A biffer’s delight.
24 LASSO – L(ocomotive), ASS (wild animal), O(ver); def. cowcatcher. Not the recently controversial (in these pages) BAR for cowcatcher, and I always want to spell it LASSOO as it sounds.
25 ELISION – &lit; there are two elisions in the phrase L’Elisir d’Amore.
26 DIVORCE – Insert ORC (from ORCA, whale species), into DIVE = enter the water; def. separate. No marks for entering DIVERGE before parsing.
28 THERE – There, there = consoling words; There! = I’ve done it!
29 NOTORIOUS – No to Rio, us! could be your anti-Olympic slogan; def. known to be bad. Well, I liked it.

Down
1 IMPASTO – I’m past O (nothing) so it’s all in front of me; def. stuff you lay on thickly.
2 PIE – PINE (long) has N removed; def. cooked dish.
3 AUTO-DA-FE – (FADE OUT A)*, the A = after, initially; def. burning. Literally, in Portuguese, ‘act of faith’, the punishment for heretics during the inquisitions.
4 HENNA – HEN (bird), N(ew) A(rea); def. reddish-brown.
5 SHRUBBERY – SH (quiet!) RUBBERY (flexible); def. part of grounds.
6 BASALT – BASAL (fundamental), T; def. rock. My FOI.
7 CLEANLINESS – CS (gas) around LEAN (thin) LINES (defensive position); def. dirt-free condition.
8 SILVERY – SI (is, reversed), L(arge), VERY = extremely; def. like the moon? As ‘by the light of…’ presumably.
12 ALTERNATIVE – (TEA INTERVAL)*, def. & lit. Is this today’s cricketing clue?
15 AGAMEMNON – ANON = soon; insert GAME (willing) MN (abbr. for maiden); def. war leader. Or is this today’s cricketing clue?
17 PULLOVER – to PULL OVER is to leave the road; def. top.
18 FASTEST – FA (footballers), reverse TSETS(E) (nearly all fly, up); def. most ahead of time.
20 EGOLESS – E.G. = say, (LOSES)*; def. lacking vanity.
21 POLICE – POL(L) = vote, to reduce = take off L; ICE = reserve; def. officers.
23 AUDIT – Today’s hidden word, in S(AUDI T)ERRITORY; def. check.
27 ROO – ROO(M) = endless opportunity; def. little bounder.

55 comments on “Times 26193 – well, I liked it.”

  1. I was undone by booze today. Having had some wine from Stumble Vineyards at the weekend, today I convinced myself that the grounds referred to in 5D were a STUMBLERY, with stum for quiet, as in ‘keep stum’ (or would that be shtum?). I also vaguely remembered stum was something to do with winemaking so it all seemed to tie up, albeit vaguely. This left me with an unreasoned UPSWELL at 10A.

    I should be more disciplined in questioning such dodgy answers but with 45 minutes gone and Waterloo approaching I lapsed into wing and a prayer mode!

  2. A bit harder today with the slightly obscure AUTO DA FE causing some head scratching

    Some well constructed clues with only 3 slightly weak offerings at FIRE, ELISION and THERE all in the SW corner. Luckily FASTEST was relatively easy and gave the first letters

    I do hope after “neighbours” the inclusion of SOAP OPERA is not indicative of a trend

  3. 20:38, though with an inexplicable “anternative”. Challenging but satisfying, though I agree about the FIRE clue. Not the best.

    For 10a I suppose the setter could just have used the old “What you you call a man with paper trousers?” gag.

    AUTO-DA-FE … I thought this cropped up not to so long ago but can’t find it on a search.

  4. 23m. A bit tricky, this, and another that put up some welcome resistance to an incorrigible biffer like me. My last in was 12dn, where I was handicapped by solving standing up on the train on my iPad: I really need a jotter for that kind of anagram, and I managed to convince myself it was going to start with ANTE.
    The appearance of the Spanish Inquisition and a SHRUBBERY in quick succession had me looking for other Monty Python references, but I didn’t spot any.
  5. This was just the sort of puzzle I was keen to avoid if it had turned up on my watch yesterday when I was going to be short of solving and blogging time, so I swapped with Tim, needlessly as it turned out. But today I struggled to get started, struggled to progress and to finish, and although I got there eventually in about an hour I needed help along the way with AUTO-DA-FE which is a new one on me. Not much fun really, even when fully relaxed and under no time constraints.

    Edited at 2015-09-02 09:07 am (UTC)

  6. 30 minutes with FIRE LOI. COD to 29a.
    After NEIGHBOURS yesterday I am beginning to get worried. Watch out for ACORN ANTIQUES tomorrow.
  7. A pleasant stroll but derailed by inexplicably putting in DIVERSE. Agree that 29A is a cracker. Pip, I had the def in 19A as ‘back order’.
  8. About half an hour. Utterly failed to parse the gloriously disgraceful 29. Can very highly recommend Elias Canetti’s novel Auto Da Fe. I like the stumblery, pootle. A word with possibilities, literal and metaphorical. Could be a patch of age I’m entering myself.
  9. All ok eventually, but took quite a lot longer than my usual 30mins or so. Dnk the meanings of AUTO DA FE or IMPASTO, so they were from wp, all others ok (except for NOTORIOUS, which was biffed…). HENNA, changed from ‘tinta’, only after I got IMPEACHES.

    Just back from holiday in Iceland where BASALT columns were definitely the order or the day, provoking much discussion on pronunciation…

  10. 24:11. Got to 19a before I got my first one in, but then made steady progress until getting stuck on SE corner. Don’t get the ‘no use’ in 29a, so 1d and 13a my favourites. 17d my LOI. As for AUTO-DA-FE, I remember discovering that through a crossword many silvery moons ago.
  11. I made very slow progress at first, but suddenly picked up speed after getting shrubbery, but it still took a full hour.
    Not greatly excited by the clues. 11 is very parochial and without a London reference the definition is a bit vague; in 14, ‘here’ is an odd word to use with reference to a date; 18 and 25 are rather weak.
    Perhaps somebody could explain to this thicko in what way 25 is &lit. I can see two elisions in the foreign phrase, which contains the first five letters of the answer, and maybe the sixth (Amore = O?)but how does the whole clue consist of wordplay that gives us ELISION?
    1. I don’t think it is &Lit, personally. There is a definition (‘cut’) and the rest is wordplay that refers to a different meaning of the answer.

      Edited at 2015-09-02 12:46 pm (UTC)

    2. One needs to look at the bigger picture rather than word analysis – one cut in L’Elisir and another in d’Amore, each represented by the apostrophe.
      1. I don’t think that’s right. ODO gives these two meanings for ELISION:
        1. The omission of a sound or letter when speaking (as in I’m, let’s)
        2. An ommission of a passage in a book, speech, or film
        I think the definition (‘cut’) refers to the second of these, and the wordplay (‘twice made in L’Elisir d’Amore’) to the first. You could also call the second part a DBE, I suppose, but either way I see two distinct meanings, two distinct parts to the clue, and no &Lit.
        1. Well I still see it as the whole clue defining the answer; an elision is a cut, which is made twice in this clue / example. But I won’t lose sleep over it, whatever it is.

          Edited at 2015-09-02 02:46 pm (UTC)

          1. I won’t lose any sleep over it either, but it seems to me that the word ‘cut’ has to refer to second definition of ELISION for the clue to be cryptic (otherwise it’s just a straight definition followed by an illustrative example) and for the surface reading to make sense: it refers to an ommission from the text of the opera.
            1. In an &lit clue the wordplay and definition coincide throughout the length of the clue, so that every part of the clue contributes to wordplay and the whole is the definition as well. Here we have a definition, an example (possibly of a second meaning, as Keriothe points out) but we don’t have any wordplay that leads to ELISION. That doesn’t invalidate the clue, but it certainly is far removed from &lit.
              The best explanation of &lit clues that I’ve seen is in Don Manley’s ‘Chambers Crossword Manual.’ As I’m sure all are aware, Don sets for the Times, The Guardian and some other publications.
        2. Actually, I wasn’t speaking to the &litness of the clue, but rather responding to dyste’s confusion. I would be more inclined to your explanation if the second sense of ‘elision’ was common, but it isn’t. I’ve never come across it and Collins doesn’t have it. That’s not to say the setter didn’t have this distinction in mind, but I think it’s just as likely that the clue was written – and should be read -holistically, tongue in cheek, almost, rather than “analytically”.
          1. My ‘confusion’ was a form of Socratic ignorance. I wasn’t confused, but I did wonder if I had missed something, since the clue was identified in the blog as &lit. There does seem to be general confusion about what an &lit clue is, hence my explanation added above.
            1. I’ll go and read my Don Manley again.
              I don’t claim to be a ‘purist’ as far as the art is concerned, I just try to explain the clues in the time I have available to blog; if I’m not sure what kind of clue it is, I call it ‘&lit.’ sit back and wait for the backlash. q.v.
          2. The strong presence of the second definition (which is in Collins, btw) in the surface reading suggests to me that this is what the setter intended.
    3. I’m absolutely 100% certain that it’s a straightforward cryptic def., the cryptic bit coming from the misleading reference to the opera, a form of work sometimes subject to cutting (blessedly, some might say). The elision is indeed simply the phonetic blending twice indicated by the apostrophe.
      1. This reading suggests that is just an unintended coincidence that ELISION also happens to mean a passage cut from a text – the text of an opera, for instance. This is possible of course but it strikes me as a remarkable coincidence.
        1. It is a coincidence, but not here an accidental one. That’s why the setter used it, isn’t it? That’s the point of the clue.

          Loads of clues rely on such coincidences in the language.

          1. But if it’s just a cryptic definition referring only to the ‘ommission of letters’ definition of ELISION then the ‘text cut out’ definition of ELISION plays no part in the clue. The clue would work identically if the second definition didn’t exist.
            1. You may be overthinking this! The ‘text cut out’ is only there as an implication in the surface reading.

              p.s. if you’re referring to the occurrence of “elisi” in the opera title, I think that is a coincidence, but one which the setter wilfully exploited as a red herring.

              I found it quite amusing at the time, but we may now be bearing out the words of Steven Wright when he compared the analysing of humour with dissecting a frog: “Nobody laughs and the frog dies.”

              Edited at 2015-09-02 06:33 pm (UTC)

              1. Sorry to keep banging on about this, but your initial comment was ‘I’m absolutely 100% certain that keriothe is wrong’. That’s how I read it, anyway… 🙂
                But I don’t agree with you. Again, imagine that ELISION didn’t mean ‘text cut out [from an opera]’. I think the clue would then have to work in exactly the way you describe. It would be a (fairly weak) cryptic definition, and I might take issue with the use of the word ‘cut’ to describe ‘replacing a letter with an apostrophe’. ‘Text cut out’ would only be there ‘as an implication in the surface reading’, as you say.
                But ELISION does mean ‘text cut out [from an opera]’. This is either a coincidence, or a fact that has some bearing on the clue’s construction. I think it’s the latter, and that ‘cut’ is a definition that refers to this meaning.

                Edited at 2015-09-02 06:47 pm (UTC)

                1. My initial comment was a direct reply to dyste, simply offering my opinion. And the “100%” was tongue in cheek. I initially had an exclamation mark in parentheses to emphasise that, but deleted it as superfluous (!).

                  I’m kind of fed up with this. Enough.

                    1. I missed the 🙂 thanks to the paragraphing. That heavens for that! I thought you’d had a sense of humour bypass.
                      1. Pesky paragraphing!
                        No, I haven’t suffered a sense of humour elision on this occasion. 🙂
  12. A bit of head scratching when I read the blog and had to retrieve the paper to check why I hadn’t got FIRE. Found out that I had written ALTTERATIVE which left F-E- and since FEED seemed OK for FUEL I just assumed my knowledge of engines was lacking (as indeed it was) and bunged it in. So a DNF in 17 minutes. Slowed down a bit by writing in PORTION at 25ac which seemed to go with ‘cut’ and the opera so I was lucky that FASTEST was easy, as Jimbo says, and forced a rethink, although the significance of ‘twice’ eluded me in both cases.

    Edited at 2015-09-02 12:40 pm (UTC)

    1. Interesting. Good try! I never knew Technetium had that alternative name. Of course if you go to high enough energy you might be able to split Gold (76), but if you produced Danubium (43) and Iron (26), you might get some Nitrogen (7) too. How do you fancy a go on the Large Hadron Collider to find out?
  14. Half an hour or so with a fully (but wrongly) parsed ‘diverse’ at 26 a, where the literal must be ‘completely separate’, as ‘orc’ is an alternative form of ‘orca’, even if no one would know it in the post-Tolkienian age.
    1. Fortunately I couldn’t decide between DIVERSE and DIVERGE. If I had only thought of one of them I expect I’d have bunged it in.
  15. So far I seem to be the only one who had DERV in 18a, and for far too long. So of course this made the footballers impossible until the last minute penny-drop. Not too crazy about EGOLESS as a word. 17.30
      1. Yes and we had ORC in this puzzle too. The legless orc from Legoland bumped off by Orlando. I happened to be in Paris when the movie came out and it sounded even better as Le Seigneur des Anneaux.
        1. Excellent.
          I vaguely remember reading Bored of the Rings in 1972. They got lost in the Ngaio Marsh and the Zazu Pitts, I think.
  16. 19 minutes in an afternoon solve, mildly disrupted.I did like the Rio clue, but AGAMEMNON’s willing maiden raised a smile to.
    Auto da fe memorably turned up in History of the World: Part 1, in a song that only Mel Brooks could get away with:
    The Inquisition (what a show)
    The Inquisition (here we go)
    We know you’re wishin’ that we’d go away.
    But the Inquisition’s here and it’s here to-
    “Hey Toquemada, walk this way.”
    “I just got back from the Auto-de-fe.”
    “Auto-de-fe? What’s an Auto-de-fe?”
    “It’s what you oughtn’t to do but you do anyway.”
    1. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, Z. Yes I miss Mel Brooks. It was only years later that my older daughter realized that the lullaby I often sang her (bedtime for babies and tiny ones) was sung to the tune of Springtime for Hitler and Germany.
      1. I love that! You’ve set me working on the rest of the verse for the next time I’m putting my grandchildren to bed.
        To Be or Not to Be was not by any means Brooks at his funniest, but worth it for Mel and Mrs Brooks singing “Sweet Georgia Brown” in perfect Polish.
        Same film, Felix Bressart with possibly the best rendition of Shylock’s hath not a Jew eyes speech.

        Edited at 2015-09-02 11:08 pm (UTC)

        1. My favourite is Silent Movie, where the only speaking line is when the french mime Marcel Marceau is asked if he will take part in the movie. He says “Non!”.
  17. Had huge trouble finding the wavelength for this one, and submitted a little after 15 minutes one a wing and a prayer, feeling very iffy about FASTEST, FIRE, ELISION and POLICE, all of which were half-parsed at best. Miraculously everything was correct for once, and I did manage to work everything out to my satisfaction after the fact.

    I do think it’s funny that ELISION had nothing or almost nothing to do with “Elisir” – it looks as though it must do, but that’s a blind alley of course…

  18. Hard to get into this one, but once in on the right hand side it rolled along. Held up at the end by what I took as misdirection in ELISION, where I was trying to find two words meaning ‘cut’ to translate into some kind of love potion. With all the checking letters in, though, the correct answer eventually reached out and metaphorically slapped me alongside the ears. Overall about 20 minutes or so. Regards.

  19. 14 mins with the last 3 mins spent dredging up ELISION, so it seems like I was very much on the setter’s wavelength for this one. So far I seem to be coping with the late solve but I’m not sure it will last.
  21. 8:52 for me. I made a slow start, including several seconds boggling at 11ac, completely unable to see how it might be parsed. But then I switched to the downs and things started to flow rather better. Like Olivia, I kept wanting 18ac to be DERV so was relieved when FASTEST eventually ruled it out. Nice puzzle.

    (After being trounced by verlaine for the last couple of days, I’m pleased to have finished comfortably ahead of him today 🙂

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