Times 26,279: Young Men In Spats

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Enjoyed this puzzle immensely – there was an excellent rogue’s gallery of characters at 11ac, 19ac, 22ac, 2dn and 18dn, giving a real sense of personality which is not always evident in a Times grid thanks to the anonymous setter and no-living-persons rules. And a real sense of fun throughout the clues to boot. 11ac, probably my Clue of the Day, fully justifies its use of the perhaps controversial new kid on the anagrind block that is “pants”, and I was a big fan of the purring protester at 16dn too.

Finished this in about 9 minutes despite the protests of an increasingly sluggish five-year-old computer – hopefully a Christmas bonus will materialise (I hear the Adele record is selling well) so I can buy a new one and then you’ll all be in trouble. I suppose that, as much as I liked 11ac and 22ac, they were above averagely biffable with a few letters in and I’ll confess to fully parsing them both only post-submission. LOI was 23d, a fine example of this grid’s down-with-the-kidsness. I suppose it’s a sign of my ever-increasing age that I got something like 5dn much more speedily than this.

Many thanks then setter – nothing 1ac or 5ac about this puzzle in my opinion!

Across
1 HOGWASH – rubbish!: double def with “that should get the hog clean”
5 HUMDRUM – tedious: HUM [drone] with DRUM [instrument]
9 LIGHTEN UP – appear more buoyant: (THE PLUG IN*) [“forced”]
10 TAMPA – US city: homophone of TAMPER [tinker “reported”]
11 ROCKY MARCIANO – heavyweight: ROO [Australian boxer (as in “boxing kangaroo”)] covering (A CRACK IN MY*) [“pants”]
13 CANISTER – holder: IS cutting CANTER [“the pace”]
15 MORTAL – human: MORAL [right] to receive {suppor}T [“ultimately”]
17 REMARK – comment: RE MARK [on | holy book]
19 BESSEMER – inventor Sir Henry: BEER [bitter] about reverse of MESS [“backfiring” shambles]
22 BERTIE WOOSTER – literary idler: BOOSTER [a fillip] when about TIE W [to marry | wife] after ER [hesitation]
25 AMATI – inscription on an old violin: in {monogr}AM A TI{ny}
26 BARTENDER – pub worker: ART [tattoo possibly] etched into BENDER [knee, say]
27 DRAUGHT – current: double def with “man on the board”
28 TUTORED – taught: TUT [old king] and O RED [old | cardinal]

Down
1 HULA – dance: HUL{k} [incredibly large person “shortly”] having A
2 GAGARIN – cosmonaut: silence [GAG] + A RIN{g} [a feature of Saturn? “Not quite”]
3 ATTIC – Greek: double def with “prison for Rochester’s wife?”
4 HONEYDEW – saccharine stuff: HONEY [darling] + homophone of DUE [expected, “it’s said”]
5 HEPCAT – cool dude: HEAT [scorcher] taking in P.C. [Bobby]
6 MOTOCROSS – sport: MO TO CROSS [very little time | to | pass the ball]
7 RAMPART – fortification: RAM PART [to hit | a bit]
8 MEADOWLARK – a bird: ME A + OWL [nocturnal flier] in DARK [the night]
12 SCOREBOARD – match reference: B [book], (A RECORD SO*) [“extraordinarily”] stopping
14 STRAINING – function of a colander: double def with “stretched to the limit?”
16 DEMOCRAT – politician: R [right] to punch DEMO CAT [purring protester?]
18 MORGANA – a sorceress: ORGAN [instrument] adopted by MA [mother]
20 MIRADOR – a high window: reverse of ROD A RIM [stick | a | border “up”]
21 TWO-BIT – in America, petty: TWIT [idiot] constrains O{ur} B{ritish} [“leaders”]
23 TWEET – message: T{act} [“a minimum of”] + WEE T [little | time]
24 TRAD – conventional: reverse of DART [missile “sent up”]

64 comments on “Times 26,279: Young Men In Spats”

  1. 19 minutes. I’m a bit bleary-eyed this morning and kept misreading clues, but I enjoyed this immensely. I think you’ve said it all, Verlaine. It’s one of those puzzles that puts a smile on your face. Nice one-two by the editor, giving us “not Yuri G” yesterday but today here he is. And there’s even a scientist to keep Jimbo happy. Who could ask for anything more?
  2. 32 minutes, so par for the course for me.
    This was a nice brain-stretch, all the more pleasing for being able to unravel the rather good cryptics.
    Nevertheless, I don’t think I’d describe those worthy people as “rogues” apart from the sinister Morgan Le Fey: Gagarin, heroic; Bessemer, genius; Wooster, feckless maybe, but rogues? I guess if the no-living-rule were not in force a writ for defamation might be coming V’s way.
    Too many good clues for a single COD.
  3. 26:17… with a few biffed and unparsed (1d, 26a) – thanks for the explanations, Verlaine. Very entertaining, I thought. It’s not often my Metallurgy degree helps with the crossword, but 19a was no problem for me. 14a my LOI. 11a and 12d my favourites.
  4. Yes, a very fine puzzle – I was chipper all the day. 31 minutes but with a conference call, which my secretary tells me lasted 16 minutes.
  5. 19:58, completing an improved week – 4/5 complete and all correct.

    I didn’t get either of the definitions for ATTIC but I presume the Greek bit relates to the recent ATTIC SALT.

    If your bonus is linked to the sales of Adele’s album verlaine, then I hope for you that grannies all over the country will be buying it this Christmas.

  6. I cracked most of this within 30 minutes but then became bogged down, hindered by not knowing MIRADOR, BESSEMER (who only came to mind once I had all the checkers in place) and MORGANA which I still don’t understand (what sorceress, where?). Also torn between BARTENDER and BARKEEPER for ages.

    Edited at 2015-12-11 11:28 am (UTC)

      2. Thanks, but FGS, how many alternative names are we required to know?

        From Wiki: Morgan le Fay alternatively known as Morgan le Faye, Morgen, Morgaine, Morgain, Morgana, Morganna, Morgant, Morgane, Morgne, Morge, Morgue, and other names, is a powerful enchantress in the Arthurian legend.

        Now that I feel I have a legitimate moan about this clue I’m going to say something I refrained from mentioning earlier, that I think 26ac is rubbish with it’s feeble “tattoo, possibly” for ART and “knee,say” as BENDER. One or other would be fine, but not both in the same clue.

        Edited at 2015-12-11 02:25 pm (UTC)

        2. I would’ve thought that Morgana was by far the most recognisable of all these names apart from “Morgan Le Fay”. But maybe that’s only because I recognised it…
  7. 22:24, definitely from the bottom up. A lot of biffing and some (like 22ac) going in almost before looking at the clue. I have not had to think about Bessemer Converters for years!
  8. Yet another forty-minute solve. I missed the anagram at 9, thinking the clue was a pun on turning the lights on by connecting a plug. I thought it was a bit strained at the time.
    It was one of those crosswords where a letter in the right place was enough to suggested an answer that had hitherto eluded me. A pleasant enough puzzle apart from the juvenile 11ac with its poor surface. self-congratulatory screech mark. ‘Pants’ doesn’t even work well as an anagrind as it’s not adjectival. One might say the clue is ‘pants’.
    1. nec de pantsibus!

      I must admit it’s the type of clue I’d have expected to run across in the Graun, more than the venerable Times…

      1. Where? It’s given as a noun in both Oxford and Chambers. They might be behind the times, as dictionaries lag behind changes in English usage, but they are the standard references as far as crosswords are concerned.
  9. 37 minutes, feeling sluggish today, good puzzle, nice to see Mr Bessemer, all been said.
    V if your bonus is dependent on good sales of Adele’s tour CD, I think you are in for a fat cheque towards your ailing PC, even enough for several PCs and a visit to the Waitrose wine section, but she’s not my cup of tea.
    1. Adele is one of those artistes (like, off the top of my head, Nickelback) whose enormous sales figures tally awkwardly with my inability to find anyone professing to be a big fan. I guess the art of selling records in music is being able to sell to the people who don’t talk about what music they like in public…
      1. Well, I think she has a terrific voice, and anyone who sings their own songs ticks the most important boxes in my book.
        1. She certainly did the best Bond song for a while. Much better than that drivel on the latest film.
          1. I find it difficult to compare her song with Sam Smith’s mainly because I can never remember Sam Smith’s, even after listening to it five times on the trot. Bring back Shirley Bassey, I say.
            1. It’s the same with Sam Smith’s beer, or it might just be I don’t want to remember drinking it. Except for the stout which is exquisite.
        2. For those who can access either bbcIplayer or youtube, you might like to see the bit of Graham Norton’s recent show with Adele where she turns up (suitably disguised) at an Adele soundalike session. She was great and the response of the other Adeles (one male) even better.

          http://youtu.be/OHXjxWaQs9o

          Edited at 2015-12-11 02:58 pm (UTC)

  10. 30 minutes of fun on a Friday.

    Verlaine, I hope that you get a very large bonus for Adele and maybe something for the weeknd?

  11. Ugh, this puzzle absolutely destroyed me. I was off with the bang, putting in a good 15 answers within 10 minutes. And then, nothing. I literally sat in front of the puzzle for an hour, unable to get a single clue. So I picked up my phone and started Googling things so I could at least finish and understand where’d I’d gone wrong.

    No idea why I was so stumped but I agree with everyone that the clues and answers were top rate and very enjoyable.

    Edited at 2015-12-11 01:13 pm (UTC)

  12. 17:53, slowed a bit by a guessed-at miramar at 20 and too many Ns in my first stab at canister.

    I didn’t know what Rochester’s wife had to do with attics but I’ve been hanging around on here with you classicists long enough to know that there’s a Greek connection.

    I actually wrote “yuk” against the demo cat clue but I enjoyed the Wooster one when I parsed it post-biff.

    1. Go read your Jane Eyre again young man!

      “How melodramatic
      if you were something muttering in attics
      like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean
      Mathematics.”

  13. 17:37. I loved this, including the slightly naughty (but impeccably constructed) 11ac and the purring protester. There were several things in here (AMATI, BESSEMER, MEADOWLARK, MIRADOR) that I sort of knew but nonetheless had to be constructed from the wordplay, which I always like. And any puzzle with Bertie W in it is likely to get my approval.
    Thanks very much setter.
  14. A most enjoyable Friday puzzle but FTF 18dn MORGANA the sorceress did for me!

    FOI 2dn GAGARIN COD 11ac ROCKY MARCIANO

    22ac BERTIE WOOSTER rather held me up after WOOLIE WOOFTER failed to satisfy!

    horryd Shanghai

  15. DNF I’m afraid, stumped by MORGANA even though I knew it when I saw it. It just never connected in my head despite having the very helpful crossers. Very stupid of me – I had to come here to see it.

    Disappointing not to finish such a good puzzle, and to end the week with a DNF.

  16. I was thinking of Mr. Rochester only yesterday apropos of elflocks – there’s always a nice little frisson when one of these crossword coincidences happens. 15.20
      1. Oh dear – the eyeglasses place didn’t do what I asked so I had to take them back this morning. I can’t imagine how that will help!
  17. I scraped in under the hour on this very entertaining puzzle. I think it’s a bit unfair to describe Bertie Wooster as an idler. Although not in employment, he actually works very hard to keep his friends, and himself, out of the soup.
  18. A solid, if rather humdrum 21.55, with the late time going on HEPCAT which certainly does show how down and dirty with the kids today’s setter is – which is to say not very. For all us frightfully modern types, though, it was (turns to camera) nice.
    It would be excellent if this story of the amazing Yuri were true:
    When Yuri Gagarin, the first man who went into space, returned to Earth, there was a huge reception in his honour. As his close friend and cosmonaut colleague Alexei Leonov tells it, then-premier Nikita Khrushchev cornered Gagarin “So tell me, Yuri,” he asked, “did you see God up there?” After a moment’s pause. Gagarin answered, “Yes sir, I did.” Khrushchev frowned. “Don’t tell any one,” he said. A few minutes later the head of the Russian Orthodox Church took Gagarin aside. “So tell me, my child,” he asked Gagarin, “did you see God up there?'” Gagarin hesitated and replied “No sir, I did not.” “Don’t tell anyone.”

    Edited at 2015-12-11 03:56 pm (UTC)

  19. Did this while listening to day 2 of the cricket and don’t remember much time passing. There was a fair bit of GK in this one, fortunately I was familiar with the boxer, the sorceress, the inventor and the literary gentleman – in the end othe only biffing was for BARTENDER

  20. Late to the party today, but just wanted to add that I hate clues like V’s cod, where I had ‘rocky manciaro’. Got everything else in about 50mins for a very (bar that one clue) enjoyable solve.
    1. Oh dear! Well if you don’t know the name you don’t know it, I suppose. He *was* the world heavyweight champion and allegedly one of the greatest boxers of all time. For some reason I was convinced he was the subject of the film “Raging Bull”, but this turns out not to be the case at all!

      Edited at 2015-12-11 05:12 pm (UTC)

      1. So did I. But then I thought there was a z in his name (obviously guessing) which put paid to the NE corner for me.
  21. I allowed myself to be held up far too long in the NE area, with nothing in there until I finally figured out the MEADOWLARK. Everything else came thereafter, but it took 45 minutes all told to penetrate my thick head. I was also held up by being convinced that Rocky was a middleweight, but I had him confused, I think, with Jake La Motta. I’m sure you all understand that. Regards.
  22. Very enjoyable. 32 minutes. Nothing to add at this late stage except that I was pleased that my schoolgirl knowledge of Henry Bessemer was finally put to good use. I was brought up in Blaenavon in South Wales, home of one of the oldest Iron Works in the world and a World Heritage Site to boot. (On a par with the Taj Mahal – how we laughed!) So Gilchrist Thomas and our friend Bessemer were part of the curriculum. Ann
  23. Sorry to row against such a strong tide, but I didn’t enjoy this puzzle very much. A matter of taste, of course, but, for example, ‘trad’ for ‘conventional’, ‘Tut’ for ‘Old king’ and ‘canister’ for ‘holder’ don’t sit comfortably for me. Nevertheless, I’m pleased that others enjoyed it so much.
  24. No problem with King Tut – if you remember your Archy and Mehitabel:

    time time said old king tut
    is something i ain t
    got anything but

    Dereklam

  26. 11:18 here – not a total disaster, but, as with the other puzzles so far this week, I’m still off the pace.

    I keep thinking of the instruction from the personnel department to managers:

    Give a list of the people in your department broken down by age and sex

    though I’m going to assert that age is the more significant factor in my case.

  27. I forgot to mention that even my indifferent 11:18 was helped, though perhaps not too much (?) by someone who made a comment about “Rocky” in the TCC’s T2 Concise Forum. I didn’t understand it at the time, and had forgotten all about it; but it almost certainly meant that ROCKY MARCIANO came to mind more quickly when I was trying to fit ROO round an anagram of ACRACKINMY.
  28. Slow today (38 mins) – but fell asleep for a little while mid-solve. Pleasant puzzle; good blog. Thanks.
    1. Well, Collins – the first dictionary I checked – has “a window, balcony, or turret”, so I don’t think there’s much to argue about. Given that it comes from the Latin verb – via the Spanish – for “look”, it’s the type of word that was born to cover different shades of meaning.
    2. If you’re correct then complaints should be addressed to the lexicographers, not the setter, as Collins has it as: a window, balcony or turret. Whatever it is it seems that its defining feature is that it affords a fine outlook.
    3. Both Chambers and OED have it as a belvedere, turret or watchtower with no mention of a window.

      It doesn’t surprise me that Collins has something different – I have seen too many instances where it gives meanings not found elsewhere and which are (shall we say) questionable.

      That being said it is a reference dictionary for the puzzle so it’s fair game for the setter.

      Dereklam

      1. I am trying to recall/research which one it was but Peter B (Crossword Editor – Sunday Times) recently said that a particular dictionary would never under his leadership be a ‘reference dictionary’. I have a feeling that it was the OED but happy to be corrected.
        1. I get the feeling that Collins’s star is in the ascendancy in both cruciverbal and Scrabble worlds, whatever might be said, on a variation of the (wink wink nod nod) “Mondays are no easier than other days” theme.

          And Peter, for all his sway, is merely Sunday Times crossword editor. The Times crossword editors tend typically to the Pythian in their pronouncements on such matters.

          Edited at 2015-12-13 01:43 am (UTC)

  30. Utterly beaten by this one. Failed on ATTIC having never heard of Rochester or his wife (though I should still have been able to get it – the Greek reference has come up recently, I think).

    The whole NE corner was also a bit of a wreck, lacking TAMPA, MEADOWLARK (I was trying to fit a moth into it, which didn’t work), MORAL and ROCKY MARCIANO.

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