Times 26296 – last typo of the year!

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 13:30, but the club timer is telling me I have two wrong, which usually means a silly typo in crossing entries. And there it is in la femme best known for visiting la guillotine. Well done, George! Let’s end the year on a whimper.

Fun puzzle this one, with a few tricks, and one that is baffling me, I think it’s a cryptic definition.

Away we go…

Across
1 FAMOUSLY: double definition referencing “getting on famously”
5 ID CARD: DID* containing CAR
10 ARROWROOT: the school is HARROW said here as ‘ARROW, then ROO(jumper), T(reating)
11 D,RAIN
12 MEAN: sounds like MIEN
13 ELBOW ROOM: the joint is an ELBOW and the study is a ROOM
15 CONFECTION: CON, then take A,F from AFFECTION
17 KILT: L in KIT
19 ANON: I guess he said no, so A NON
20 OPEN SEASON: This is my question mark – I guess it’s a cryptic definition because it doesn’t read like a definition
22 CANONICAL: CANON(one priestly) then LAIC* – I’ve usually seen this definition applied to linearity of TV shows
24 LEEK: KEEL reversed, symbol of Wales
26 POTTO: OTT,OP all reversed – a loris
27 SMALL-BORE: BORE(carried) with SMALL(a little) in front
28 DIETER: double definition
29 TARTED-UP: STARTED UP missing the first letter
 
Down
1 FLAB: FAB(great, wicked) holding L
2 MARIE ANTOINETTE: and not MARIE ANTIONETTE as I managed to enter. Anagram of TERMINATION and (l)ATE followed by E
3 UNWONTED: change the A in UNWANTED to an O
4 LOOSE: double definition referencing “fast and loose”
6 DO DOWN: not a phrase I was familiar with, but the wordplay is clear – DODO followed by alternating letters in WiNg
7 ANABOLIC STEROID: anagram of IN,CAR,BOOT,SALE followed by I’D
8 DYNAMITING: DYING(very keen) containing MAN reversed and IT
9 STUB,BORN
14 SCRATCH-PAD: anagram of CARDS,APT containing CH
16 TYPE,CAST
18 FELL,FLAT
21 UNDONE: UND(oneand in German), ONE(I).Thanks? to the anon poster who pointed out my fluff when writing it up
23 LHASA: hidden in halL HAS Altered
25 KEEP: double definition, living meaning board and maintenance here

34 comments on “Times 26296 – last typo of the year!”


  1. Struggled away at NE as I’d put 1ac FAMILIAR (which works) but not with 3 and 4 dn! I realised it should be FAMOUSLY thus LOI and so I hit 45 mins.

    COD 20 ac OPEN SEASON

    horryd – Shanghai

  2. FOI (and LOO) was FAMILIAR. When it was eventually corrected, the previously unsolvable 3dn and 4dn became quite obvious. So obvious in fact that I didn’t bother to parse UNWANTED.

    Thus the year ends pretty much as it began. Will console myself with a dip in my now crack-free pool in preparation for our neighbourly celebrations.

    Thanks setter and George, and a Happy New Year to everyone.

  4. Similar experience and time to Gallers – pleased to hear his cracks are fixed – with the question mark on my scratchpad against ‘mini’ at 17a ignored once DYNAMITING went in, and thus becoming ‘mint’.

    In fact, I never parsed DYNAMITING, stymied by reversing the IT, so thanks to GH for that.

    A happy new year to all. No doubt the Saffers will be resolving to put up a bit more resistance to the world’s sixth-ranked cricket team than the Aussie did…

    1. So now that it’s time to reflect, how would you sum up 2015? Does a stuttering home win in the Ashes make up for two major World Cup humiliations?
  5. Another FAMILIAR which I didn’t see any need to review until I had struggled long and hard with 3 and 4 down to no avail.

    The rest I liked, although I’ve never heard of SCRATCH-PAD and needed all the checkers. Even after looking it up in the dictionary I am none the wiser.

      1. Wrong dictionary, perhaps? From Collins: “2. (computing) a small semiconductor memory for temporary storage”
  6. Lots of pitfalls here – and, yes, while avoiding most (e.g. MINI/KILT) I inevitably fell into one of them (UNWANTED). The anagram at 14d took me an inordinate amount of time to fathom out.
    And is 29a really “Started up” without the initial letter? If so, I just don’t get it.
    BTW 20a is definitely a cryptic clue, i.e. the time of the year when people can legitimately go and slaughter defenceless creatures with gay abandon.
    1. re 29ac the first three words are the def., the rest to indicate (s)TARTED UP.. ie started up, with it’s face scrubbed.. bit of a stretch I suppose, but not hard
  7. Found this very straightforward, but none the worse for that, with both the long downers going straight in and not much tempted by familiar which I couldn’t parse. A brisk 14min end to the year.
    Yes, 20ac just a (neat) cryptic def.
    Happy New Year to all.. only a few hours to go, down under, I suppose
  8. Trying to come in under 30 minutes meant a last chance guess at 20a with everything else in. A wrong guess – spin lesson anyone? Aaargh! Still, gives me something to aim for in the new year…Thanks for the helpful blog, George, explaining my more successful guesses!
  9. 19 minutes, starting with the French lady and ending with MEAN, nice puzzle, was curious to see the exact explanation for 29a having biffed it. Quite celever really.
    Mrs K and I both suffering from nasty cold virus, eyes streaming, feels like Storm Frank has passed through me, doubt if we shall appear at the planned festivities tomorrow, but we wish all bloggers and readers a Happy New Year.
  10. We are applying a charge of dynamite to the back end of 2015 because our younger daughter is getting married today and we are having a partee. The Guardian is featuring an Enigmatist puzzle this morning, in case anyone would like to repeat the torture from the TftT celebrations earlier this month. Best wishes for 2016 to all.
    1. I do hope you have a wonderful day, Olivia, and I also hope that it costs you a whole lot less than when my daughter got married!

      Though it was a fine day.. enjoy..

  11. 20:38. Not heard of POTTO except as a village in North Yorkshire, so that’s my new word for the day. I got going on this quite quickly but got held up for a while with my last few taking time to see KILT, the exploding 8d and needing ARROWROOT to get to UNWONTED. Nice puzzle to ned the year on. 17a my favourite.
    1. Ah yes, the place from which the ubiquitous Prestons hail from in their red artics. Always thought that was the wrong way round.
  12. I guess the last day of the year is a good time to make my first post and to say ‘thank you’ to you all for this brilliant blog. After years of glancing at the crossword and deeming it to be the province of intellectual boffins, I was amazed a few months ago to find some friends (not intellectual boffins or geeks!) completing it daily … and on the basis of “if they can solve it, so can I’, set about tackling it regularly. Given plenty of time and a teeny bit of help from Messrs Googe and Wiki, I am proud of my successes. My knowledge of crosswordese, Greek myths, ancient gods and even Japanese dancing has improved enormously. So, thank you for this invaluable blog and Happy New Year to everyone.
    MJS.
  14. 6 minutes today, so back on the wavelength I guess after a long doldrumic period. I’m sure there are some kind of extenuating circumstances to explain why the reigning champion took almost 2 Verlaines to finish today – but I nearly fell off my chair anyway!
  15. 18.55. An enjoyable piece of quirkery, with obviously (from the ratings) a lot of heffalump traps along the way. I have no idea when heffalump season is, but had to wait until I had the checkers in to work out which SEASON was required. Game, duck, dear, bear, even coot were all possibles, perfectly illustrating the problem with CD clues. Liked it, though.
    Congratulations and best wishes to Rhinebeck minor and partner: what a fabulous way to end the year. Olivia, if I could get it to you, you could borrow my hanky. Still, you’s not losing a daughter so much as as gaining a new drain on your finances. Make the most of the bubbly while you can still afford it!
  16. 15:40. I started very quickly on this but then got seriously stuck with five or six to go. POTTO seemed likely from the wordplay but I had completely forgotten it from its last appearance here just over two years ago (25654), and I’ve never heard of SCRATCHPAD in this context so it took me a while to confirm the P. However I wasted far more time as a result of bunging in FAMILIAR, which made 3dn and 4dn pretty tricky for a while.
    Happy New Year all.
  17. Nice quirky puzzle, with a couple of particularly good anagrams — MARIE ANTOINETTE and ANABOLIC STEROID. Unfortunately, I carelessly entered UNWANTED instead of UNWONTED at 3D, which was indeed unwanted.

    Re George’s query about OPEN SEASON: I think it has to be a cryptic def, though arguably it is almost a literal def that could equally have passed muster in the Concise. Perhaps for that very reason it took me an absurdly long time to work out what kind of season was required.

    Happy New Year to all and multi-thanks to George and all the other expert bloggers who have given so much time to entertaining and enlightening us over the last 12 months.

  18. 13:35 but I can’t say I enjoyed this much. It seemed to be a bit loose and clunky.

    I’m with Z on the haulage firm, I want to correct every truck to “Pottos of Preston”.

    HNY all.

  19. Nothing too difficult here as long as one proceeded with caution but reasonable fun for all that. Can’t believe another year has gone.
  20. I missed this blog early this morning expecting to find it above today’s Quickie so not bothering to look below it.

    I found this quite hard but I was never stuck for ideas for long so I enjoyed the battle. Unfortunately I missed out on 3dn never having consciously come across UNWONTED before. I eventually biffed “unwanted” as it fitted with “surplus” but had no idea what the rest of it was about. Then I used a word-finder to see if anything else fitted the checkers and discovered the unknown word and its meaning.

  21. 10 mins so I must have been on the setter’s wavelength. It was probably fortunate that I saw FAMOUSLY reasonably quickly, and I’d come across UNWONTED before so wasn’t tempted by “unwanted” once I’d read the clue a second time. TARTED UP was my LOI.

    I hope the wedding goes really well Olivia, and Happy New Year to you all.

  23. Happy New Year to all. About 25 minutes for the puzzle, nothing more than has already been said on that, but congratulations to all at the Rhinebeck festivities. Regards.
  24. 16:34 for me, never really finding the setter’s wavelength. Ah well – tomorrow is another year.

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