Times 26,243: The Name’s Bond… Ybounden In A Bond

Once again a uniformly excellent Friday puzzle that I did on paper, possibly depriving the Crossword Club of witnessing my off-by-one downfall for the second time in a row. I finished the whole grid apart from 13dn with loads of change, pounds and pounds of change, from the quarter hour… and then sat looking at _H_P_A_L_N for minutes and minutes. It seemed overwhelmingly likely that the second half was FALLEN, but whatFALLEN? WHIPFALLEN? SHOPFALLEN? CHOPFALLEN had a ring to it, down at the mouth, sagging at the chops, and who knows, maybe God just karate-chopped that sinner straight out of Eden? Of course it did occur to me before too long that perhaps your ancestor and mine Adam was more of a CHAP than a CHOP. But who knows what I’d have done under timed conditions. Anyway, I definitely DNK the word (compare and contract to the very familiar CRESTFALLEN) but will be using it all the time from now on, to describe myself after checking the stats on the club site, probably.

As I say though a really nice puzzle with loads of super surfaces, cunning devices, and abundant fun to be had. 20ac was my first one in, perhaps because you can’t get away from Bond film ads at the moment, and a couple of easyish anagrams at 5dn and 17dn meant that getting started on this one was not a problem. Talking of anagrams I really liked the better hidden one at 27ac, which evaded my notice for a long time; I enjoyed “Cooke’s last Letter from America” a lot at 21d, 1ac was very interesting and elegant too, but my COD has to go to 6dn, with such a good surface reading and referring as it does to my spiritual kindred. Thank you setter!

And so nearly a pangram too. But I just have to say, what’s the deal with doing a puzzle the week a new James Bond flick comes out that has Q missing?

Across
1 CROUP – throat trouble: CRO{p s}UP [arises “when coating of P{ill}S is removed”]
4 MEGAPHONE – PA: A GEM [a treasure, “returning”] + PHONE [call]
9 VANCOUVER – “here in Canada”: VAN COVER [vehicle | insurance] “giving” U [universal] “protection”
10 BATON – this mustn’t be dropped by team: BAT ON [to stay at the crease]
11 LARVAE – grubs: R [river] put in LAV [can] + {w}A{t}E{r} [water “oddly lacking”]
12 HELL-BENT – with reckless intent: HE’LL BET [what the gambler’ll do] “seizing” N [note]
14 SPELLCHECK – validate words of: CHECK [constraint] at end of SPELL [session]
16 JAMB – part of window frame: homophone of JAM [“when called out”, fix]
19 DUPE – kid: P [power] “within grasp of” DUE [outstanding]
20 SPITEFULLY – with malice: SPY [agent] “carrying” (FUEL LIT*) [“explosive”]
22 SIDEREAL – dependant (though shouldn’t it be dependEnt?) on stars: SIDE [team] + REAL [money from Brazil]
23 SPACER – astronaut: PACE [one step] “described by” SR [senior]
26 OUTRE – unconventional: {acc}OUTRE [attire “a C{ricket} C{lub} initially rejected”]
27 LONGITUDE – location marker on map: (TO INDULGE*) [“criminal”]
28 CASHEW NUT – nutritious food: AS HEWN [as chopped] in CUT [chop]
29 TILED – with protective cover: TI{ll -> L}ED [worked “half-heartedly”]

Down
1 CIVILISED – cultivated: LIS [French lilies] in C IVIED [cape | covered with greenery]
2 OWNER – one who has: W [wife] enters RENO [divorce centre “from the rear”]
3 PROBABLY – most likely: L [learner] in BABY [pet project] headed by PRO [master]
4 MOVE – suggest: MOV{i}E [“I should be kept out of” the picture]
5 GARDEN CITY – urban development: (DICEY GRANT*) [“messed up”]
6 PEBBLE – “often seen on beach”: PE{op -> B B}LE [folks “preferring books to work”]
7 ON THE BALL – alert: (HELL + BATON*) [(first) half of 12(ac) with 10(ac) “unusually”]
8 ERNST – “this drawer”: “restricted by” {mod}ERN ST{andards}
13 CHAPFALLEN – melancholy: CHAP FALLEN [report of Adam’s transgression?]
15 EXPEDITES – dispatches: P [page] + EDIT [revision] accepted by EXES [old partners]
17 BOYFRIEND – steady: (DERBY INFO*) [“broadcast”]
18 OFFPRINT – copy: OFF [cancelled] + {s}PRINT [run “short of initial”]
21 BREEZE – current: BR [duo starting BR{oadcast}] + “recalled” E ZEE [{Cook}E’s last | Letter from America]
22 STOIC – “I’ll bear it”: I “invested in” STOC{k} [fund “showing ultimate loss”]
24 CHURL – “he’s far from gracious”: C [caught] on HURL [pitch]
25 KNIT – double def: what Aran workers may do / to fuse

48 comments on “Times 26,243: The Name’s Bond… Ybounden In A Bond”

  1. 30 mins – so good for me on a Friday. Also DNK CHAPFALLEN. I was looking for something to do with apples for a while. Many good clues but enjoyed 1a and I agree with Verlaine on 27a and 6d.
  2. A full English breakfast to complete this one.Also hit the buffers at 13 until a voice in the wilderness cried ‘bath chap’ then verily I saw the light.
  3. Pouring with rain here so no golf today. Good chewy puzzle that I enjoyed – the Cooke’s last letter from America is very good – but also ended up guessing CHAPFALLEN. Not a word I recall meeting before.
  4. I gave up with -H-PFALLEN, having alphabet-run, and passed CHAPFALLEN without missing a beat…

    Was cross at TILED, thinking it was T(o)ILED. Silly me! Also, dnk RENO as divorce centre, so that was biffed. All others ok, but slowish…

    PEBBLE gets COD from me too today.

      1. Cross first because I thought ‘half-heartedly’ was a bit lame for taking the 2nd of 6 letters out, and then secondly cross with myself for not getting it!

  5. A good Friday puzzle and the bonus of a long Verlaine intro – did the kid’s drive themselves today?

    PEBBLE was also my COD.

    No problem with CHAPFALLEN as I recalled the Hedley Mobbs WWI poem – ‘Chapfallen under the tarpaulin’ – written at Ypres.

    LOI 21 ac

    horryd Shanghai

  6. No golf down south for the same reason, Jimbo. An excellent sub-par (in the golfing sense) puzzle, with elegant surface reads, cunning wordplay (I particularly liked CROUP, OUTRE and HELL-BENT) and well-disguised anagrams. CHAPFALLEN eventually swam up from the depths of memory, though like Sawbill I too was thinking “apples” for a while.

    Thanks to Verlaine for fully explaining how BREEZE worked and also for putting me right on TILED. (29A). There wasn’t any other answer possible once the cross-checkers were in place, but I had taken “worked” to be TOILED and couldn’t see how this could be made “half-heartedly” to produce what was obviously the right answer.

  7. A slight consolation to see I wasn’t the only one to make the TOILED error (see Janie above)
  8. This is the third consecutive day I have had to cheat to get the last one in, namely CHAPFALLEN. I vaguely remember it from somewhere but was never going to work it out. A google search on TftT reveals that it appeared in a Jumbo in 2010 in the days when I used to do that puzzle most weeks, but I doubt that’s the reason for my being aware of its existence. SPACER was he only other unknown but was easy enough to deduce.

    Edited at 2015-10-30 10:34 am (UTC)

  9. 20m. CHAPFALLEN unknown (according to Chambers it’s a variant of ‘chopfallen’) but got from wordplay, once I’d stopped trying to shoehorn an apple in there somehow.
    ‘Cooke’s last letter from America’ is brilliant.
    1. “Chop-fallen” is undoubtedly the more usual form. “Where be your gibes now? Your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were won’t to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s table and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come” (Hamlet addressing the disinterred skull of Yorick, the king’s former jester)
      1. I’ve never come across chopfallen apart from that passage in Hamlet, whereas chapfallen once seen was very recognisable. Not used much these days but I think tended to be around in my childhood. Good puzzle but capsized in SW.
      2. I’ll have to take your word for it: I didn’t remember either, although I have certainly come across that passage in Hamlet many times so this is just a case of poor memory.
        1. Interesting. “Chop-fallen” is the only variant I’ve ever known, and that entirely from the Hamlet passage. But clearly it had to be “chapfallen” here. The dictionaries seem to agree in giving both variants equal billing. My Chambers, in addition to giving the figurative meanings of “cast-down” and “dejected”, also offers the literal definition: “having the chop or lower jaw fallen down”, which, I guess, would be a pretty accurate description of Yorick’s or indeed any one else’s disinterred skull.
  10. Faced with _H_P_A_L_N, and with the clue wanting a ‘report of Adam’s transgression’ I was looking for a homophone for what Adam did. I therefore came up with WHIPTAPLIN, a homophone for “whipped apple in”.

    I don’t think I would have got this if I’d looked at it any longer, so I’m not too chapfallen.

    1. My tutor in the classics at Magdalen College was a satyr-resembling gentleman called Oliver Taplin, but I assure you I didn’t get up to any WHIPTAPLIN in my time there. Maybe if I’d joined the Piers Gaveston Society, but my invitation was unforthcoming…
        1. I guess Merton’s alright, but not quite enough deer for my tastes. Plus for those of us who like to sashay about like a big fin-de-siecle Classicist fop there was only really one choice…
            1. I do remember being tummy-rumblingly jealous of the rumoured Merton feastings. Unfortunately I never had a close Merton pal to take me along as a guest 🙁
      1. A very fine solver named David Ker Stout (deceased 2013) was an economics don at Magdalen, among other things in a distinguished career. Did you know him? I came to know him via the Club Forum and then in person, and he almost always posted times much faster than mine although he was in his 80s. And it was my late father, a young natural sciences don at the college until he got sent to take part in WWII, who introduced me to crosswords. A maudlin story I’m afraid so I’ll spare you.

        Edited at 2015-10-30 09:41 pm (UTC)

  11. Alas the SW corner finally defeated me and the white flag was hoisted – even though I did manage to get CHAPFALLEN. My chaps, chops and even crest are all fallen today.

    Edited at 2015-10-30 11:32 am (UTC)

  12. …including some long interruptions, so quite a good week’s solving if not for the FORT WILLIAMS disaster on Tuesday.

    CHAPFALLEN was today’s QUICKTHORN for me, except that this time I wasn’t alone.

    BREEZE was my LOI and COD. Thanks setter and Verlaine.

  13. Got there in the end but was badly distracted by 22d as STAIN – STAN(d) as in ‘bear the cost of standing a round) with the I in it. Perhaps you bear a stain? Like others, the word I know is CHOPFALLEN
  14. I’m another who didn’t know CHAPFALLEN, but put it in as the only plausible answer I could think of. Sadly I put in SIDERIAL at 22a so can’t claim a success. 23m 03s with the error.
    1. My first thought for the currency was ‘rial’ – I note it’s the currency of Iran, Oman and Yemen – but fortunately I knew how to spell ‘sidereal’.
  15. An error too for me. For some reason, I had entered PROBABLE instead of the adverb. Is there a reason that a pet project can’t be a babe, and either answer seem to fit the definition? I know I’m wrong, and clutching at straws, but having put in my answer, it never occurred to me that there might be an alternative.

    With all the talk about Magdalen and Merton above, can I put in a plug for the relatively sproggish King’s College London, where I am currently sitting. Less classics, but respectable nonetheless.

    1. I think the clue was grammatically incorrect. Likely is an adjective, not an adverb. But I probably think that because I had probable too…
  16. I did interview at and get an offer from KCL shortly before Oxford made my native indolence a two-E offer it couldn’t refuse, so I do think of it fondly to this day…
  17. Hard for me. I’d never heard of either variant of 13d but eventually opted for the wrong one. I thought Adam had ended up chopping down the tree, but I must have been mixing him up with George Washington, a perfectly understandable mistake to make. Yes, I thought BREEZE was a beauty and my next to LOI before 13d, and I also liked OUTRE (one of those words beloved of setters) and LONGITUDE, a tricky anagram as pointed out.

    Thank you to setter and to blogger for explaining the parsing of a few that eluded me.

  18. I had to resort to aids to find CHAPFALLEN, my LOI. Not on the tip of my tongue. But overall a very fine puzzle, COD’s to CROUP, OUTRE and SPITEFULLY. Regards.
  19. No time to report because I was very tired when I started it, I fell asleep less than a third through, and that third had been a trial. To make matters worse I found when I came here that my “probable” was wrong, and I’m blaming that on the tiredness even though it went in after I’d woken up. CHAPFALLEN was my LCOI (last correct one in) after I dredged it up from the memory banks. I was another trying to fit “apple” into the answer for a while, and it was only post-solve that I realised it was Eve rather than Adam who transgressed with the said fruit.
  20. Don’t see why ‘probable’ is not also possible (as it were) for 3dn. “Most likely” is adjectival, surely? ‘The most likely outcome’ etc. And ‘babe’ is acceptable for ‘pet’ in the modern world, surely?
    1. But it’s not a word meaning “pet” that we’re looking for, it’s “pet project” and that can only be “baby”.
  21. 9:08 for me – the sort of time I should have taken for yesterday’s puzzle.

    I’m with joekobi over CHAPFALLEN. I was going to say that I haven’t come across CHOPFALLEN other than in Hamlet, but I see that the OED includes a citation from Scott’s The Antiquary. Perhaps I just missed it there; anyway I suspect CHAPFALLEN is a lot more common.

    An interesting and enjoyable puzzle: I join others in praise of “Cooke’s last letter from America”. My compliments to the setter (and as usual to the blogger).

    1. I’d forgotten it too, and I read the book (my favourite Scott) only a year or so ago.

      Part of the reason for that – besides the advancing years – is that Scott explains it as he writes it, so one doesn’t have to look it up: ‘Sir Arthur, during this investigation, had looked extremely embarrassed, and, to use a vulgar but expressive phrase, chop-fallen.’

      Mind you, with the online dictionary of the Scots language getting a good workout when reading Scott or George Macdonald, there are limits to what I, at any rate, am willing to look up!

      1. How can there be a dictionary of the Scots language when there’s no such thing as a Scots language. Being non-UKian but having spent a bit of time around Scotland it seems there are hundreds and hundreds of dialects but no actual “language.” People from Aberdeen can’t understand people from Stonehaven 30 km away, and they can’t understand people from Montrose another 30 km away; and no-one can understand Glaswegians or islanders.
        The editors of a “Scottish dictionary” (and indeed the editors of Chambers) are committing intellectual fraud in claiming a word as “Scottish” rather than “dialect.”
        Whcih is another way of saying: couldn’t get chapfallen. 😉
        Rob
        1. It is perhaos in the artificial context of literature that “Scots” best merits its name. The fact that the novels of Scott and MacDonald are “translated” for modern, largely American readers, is suggestive of the significant difference between Standard Brirtish English and “Scots”.
  22. This is a direct quote, not from ‘Adam lay ybounden ‘ but from an ancient carol, ‘A Virgin most pure’, which I only know because I was a choirboy 60 years ago

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