Times 26,318

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
In case you missed the memo: real-world commitments are going to make it difficult for me to blog reliably over the next few months, so, when I also realised that I have been doing my alternate Tuesday slot for a little short of 8 years, I decided perhaps this was time for people to have a rest from my voice, and vice versa. Thank you to all the setters whose dependably entertaining puzzles I have deconstructed – always fairly I hope, even on those days when I was on a different wavelength – and to everyone who has participated in discussing them.

So, this will be my last daily blog for a while. I’m sure it will be of great comfort for people to know I shall still be commenting as time allows, and hope to return to blogging when circumstances permit. In the meantime, I shall depart on 271; if it’s good enough for VVS Laxman, it’s good enough for me.

Enough of this self-indulgence. What was served up as my final offering? Obviously I was fearful that it might be some unspeakable horror – Spoonerisms? Awful homophones? Horticulture? – which would take me an hour to solve and even longer to make sense of, but Tuesdays are rarely the place for such things. In fact it was a quick and pleasant solve, with no obscure general knowledge by my definition of the term, and some nice witty touches.

Across
1 MAVERICK – M[onsieur], AVE(=greeting), RICK(=strain).
5 PREWAR – P[enny] REWAR[D]. Not sure if I’ve ever seen the general term “defective” used to indicate the very specific cutting off of the end of a word rather than an anagram, say.
9 REAL TIME – (MATERIEL)*. One to bring back painful memories to anyone who biffed “material” on Finals Day, when it was an answer rather than the anagram fodder.
10 BUTTON – BUTT ON=”keep pushing” and it’s “closer” as in “a thing which closes” rather than “nearer”.
12 APPLE-PIE ORDER – ordering an apple-pie would be a very traditional thing to do in a Midwest diner, and “apple-pie order” means “tidy”, though nobody seems to know why – perhaps a corruption of similar French words, given that apple pies aren’t exactly famous for their neatness.
15 TRAIT – and from apple-pie to TART, reversed with I inside.
16 TELEPHOTO – “completely” can be expressed as “in toto”, so we take ELEPH [ELEPHANT minus the ANT(=worker)] and put it in TOTO. Very clever.
17 NOTEPAPER – money being notes, which are also paper money, in which case technically they’re only one example of money. I’m not quibbling, really.
19 CHOSE – double def. One=”selected”, the other is the French for “thing”. Using foreign languages in puzzles is always a divisive issue, but I think most people’s French vocab can reasonably be expected to stretch to this.
20 GRIN AND BEAR IT – a rather dark cryptic def.
22 MINUTE – IN in MUTE.
23 DOWNFALL – DOWN=”sad” FALL=”few months for US”, the months of what we call autumn to be precise (though as was discussed in comments last week, the problem with some Americanisms is not that they’re new, but that they’re old; and we’ve lost them over the centuries while Americans haven’t).
25 NATURE – double def.
26 HEBRIDES – HE(=man), BRIDE(=wife), S[on]. The Hebrides Overture being the one normally called Fingal’s Cave, by Mendelssohn.
 
Down
1 MARK ANTONY – KANT, the philosopher, inside (ARMYON)* gives the Roman general.
2 VIA – first letters of V[iolence] I[s] A[rrested].
3 RETREAT – the tyre is a RETREAD, change the last letter to get “withdraw”.
4 COME INTO PLAY – (TOYPOLICEMAN)*.
6 ROUND UP – one literal def. (“summary”) and a cryptic one: if it doesn’t leap out immediately, think of the point as a decimal point.
7 WATERCOLOUR – (RARECOWL[eft]OUT)*.
8 RIND – GRIND without the G[ood].
11 COLLARED DOVE – COLLARED=”arrested”, and DOVE is the American English past tense of dive, as in taking to the water.
13 PLANTAGENET – a world representative could be described as a PLANET AGENT; move the E[uropean] down to get our royal family before the Tudors.
14 MONEY TALKS – two phrases described in the same words, one literal, one not.
18 POINTER – the hero of Diary of a Nobody is Charles Pooter; take one of the O[ld]s in Pooter and replace it with IN to get the hunting dog.
19 CLEANER – C[onservative], LEANER(=not so generous).
21 OMEN – based on the crosswordy notion that you might attract people’s attention by exclaiming “O, Men!”.
24 AND – turn DNA, the key to our genetic code, upside down.

53 comments on “Times 26,318”

  1. 41 minutes, with not much to say, besides noting that 13d was a very naughty clue for someone like me who is insecure in his spelling of PLANTAGENET, with its ‘a European’ to put down. Now, do you mean the A or the E? It took my ultra non-mathematical brain an eternity to work out what the answer had to be, and I still couldn’t resist a tiny Google to check I was right after yesterday’s embarrassment.

    Farewell, Tim. You must be the second-longest serving continuous blogger after the boss himself, unless one of those shadowy Jumboistas has been at it even longer.

  2. … Tim and thanks for all the blogs. Hope to see you back before too long.

    As you guessed, couldn’t work out ROUND UP. Glad to have that explained. Also had a few problems with TELEPHOTO, the overture and the vocative at 21dn.

    The DOVE at 11dn brought back horrid reminders of US editors changing my English to American. “Dived” -> “dove” was one particularly galling example. Especially as it was in the first sentence of the piece in question.

    Still, a fine puzzle with enough challenge to be interesting.

    Happy Horse-trailer Day to all solvers residing at Gert-by-Sea.

  3. A couple of these went in without a full parsing, like 1ac, where I left the M unaccounted for–took a while for the penny to drop. DNK the dove, and it took me a while to come up with COLLARED. It’s not as if we Murcans don’t use ‘dived’ and ‘autumn’–I’m pretty sure I prefer ‘dived’ to ‘dove’–so I’m surprised that Mctext’s editors were so rigid. COD to 12ac.
    Thanks, Tim; I hope the absence won’t be too long.
    1. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that a good blogger always misses something out in order to give people something to discuss in comments.
      1. It is the basis I always work on when blogging. 😉

        Thanks for all your much appreciated blogs over the years.

  5. Nice blog, as always TT (I’ve always liked the juxtaposition of your avatar and the obvious moniker abbreviation). Glad you’ll at least be able to attend future festivities on the sloggers side of the table.
    Regarding the puzzle, my French doesn’t extend to chose, but my biffing does. I liked Telephoto; wasn’t so keen on Retreat.
    1. never noticed the TT before, thanks Paul
      I had RETRACE then RETRACT before the “nappes pliées” above scuppered those (other etymologies are available)

      jb

  6. 52 minutes with my phone helping me get the ORDER for my APPLE-PIE, the BUTT for my ON, and the POOTER for my POINTER.

    Thanks to TT, without whom I never would have understood the wordplay for MAVERICK, ROUND UP, PLANTAGENET, and OMEN.

    Your beerpuzzle avatar will be sorely missed.

  7. Yes, not too bad, though I had to guess a few unfamiliar terms such as COLLARED DOVE from the word play. Glad I’m not the only one with problems spelling PLANTAGENET – couldn’t figure out the parsing until I corrected the extra A with an E. Liked the ‘in toto’ bit of TELEPHOTO and MONEY TALKS. I initially had ‘DNA’ rather than AND for 24d – I don’t know if you could really tell from the clue which way it was meant to be.

    Thank you to blogger – enjoy your rest from this task at least – and setter.

  8. 26 minutes for this one with only KANT unknown, though I note I didn’t say that when he appeared in a puzzle in December 2012. There’s lots of stuff to like here. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re alluding to, Tim, but there’s an expression “as American as apple pie” which I assume is the reference in the first part of 12ac.

    Farewell then, Tim, at least as a blogger for the time being. As things stand at the moment I shall be keeping your alternate Tuesday chair warm for when your circumstances change and you are able to return to full active service.

    1. David Crosby has something (unpleasant) to say about “the last stronghold of mother, God, home and apple pie”.
    2. Jack, you need to brush up on your Monty Python: Immanuel Kant is the first cab off the rank in the Philosophers Song.
      1. I was wondering if Canton was a philosopher, in the mobile army – everyone knows a Roman is Marc not Mark – before remembering (even his first name Immanuel) Kant from the song.
        Otherwise mostly straightforward and enjoyable.
        Rob
  9. Aaargh! The unknown overture took me over the 30mins mark, but I neglected to go back and parse a few, including PLANTAGENET. Which I got wrong.

    COD: TELEPHOTO

    Thanks for all the hours put in, Tim. You (and all other bloggers) are very much appreciated.

  11. 14m. This was a mixture of the easy and the decidedly tricky. The ‘in toto’ device is clever. Some might say too clever, but not me. My only unknown today was the overture, or rather this name for it.
    Sorry to see you go, Tim. I do hope you will continue to comment.
  12. 13:03 … nice to see a ‘daily’ as a def., not just a bit of wordplay. But MONEY TALKS gets my COD vote for a perfect surface.

    Thank you, Tim, for all your hard work and a long run of A1 blogs. Well played, that man.

  13. Enjoyed this crossword, not too challenging but inventive; good work

    I’m sorry to see you go Tim, you’ve been a top class blogger. I hope it is temporary as you suggest

  14. 25:50. Similar to yesterday no great holdups but enough to feel challenged.

    Thank you Tim for your long contribution to this blog which has helped me get my solving to the level it is at today.

  15. Easy puzzle as it should be for Tim’s swan song

    Tim and I shared Tuesday for a long time which was a great pleasure. I bet you get withdrawal symptoms Tim – I still do the Mephisto but it’s not the same as the pressure of the daily and the fun of the comments

    Best wishes and I hope you’ll keep contributing to the blog

  16. Never did find the wavelength. PRE-WAR (I wanted a hyphen in there) is very specific NYC realtor-speak for an apartment building dating from before 1939 so it took an age in crossword time for me to connect it to “Edwardian”. 16.11

    Many thanks for all the blogs Tim. Please follow the example of your fellow Tuesday blogger Jimbo and turn up here frequently.

  17. Solved on a train which always seems to make me slower. Or not “solved” in fact as I got to 20 minutes completely stumped by 5 where I went for a hopeful but ultimately hopeless DRAWER. I justified this as D for penny, raw for defective, ER for Edwardian times and prize unaccounted for. As for the definition, well it’s an &Lit innit, with a drawer being one of those defective penny prizes much beloved by tje Edwardians.

    Thanks for all the blogs Tim, I’ll miss your humour.

  18. A few tricky bits here and some neat surfaces. MONEY TALKS and CHOSE among them. COD though goes to the clever TELEPHOTO. Thanks and best wishes to topicaltim.
  19. Inside my 40 minute norm, but not by much, being held up in the extreme NE with 5, 8 and 10. For some reason I was looking for a word ending in BY for 5, reading too much into the ‘times’.

    Au revoir Tim, and good luck in whatever real world commitments are taking you away from what is obviously your real vocation. I have very much enjoyed your blogs over the last year or so since I have been coming here. And anyone whose avatar includes a part-consumed pint of bitter (flattish and warmish as it should be) gets my vote!

    Edited at 2016-01-26 10:49 am (UTC)

  20. Thought this was absolutely terrific,with many outstanding clues. A most enjoyable solve. Thank you setter.
  21. FYI ZIPPER (anag of P PRIZE) which kind of slowed me down a bit but struggled in under the 30 min mark. Enjoyed MONEY TALKS.

    All the best Tim and thanks for your blogs.

    1. I did wonder if the ZIPPER was an Edwardian invention that somehow justified the clue. Looked such an obvious anagram, especially with “defective”.
          1. There are certain things in this life that you only do once unless you are stupid. Slamming a door without looking at the keys in your hand is one of them. This is another.
      2. I just misread your comment, Z8, and wondered for a moment if you were positing a famous Edwardian detective — Zipper of the Yard.
        2. The one who accounted for Doug and Dinsdale Piranha? Or the one who failed in the quest to unmask Jack the Zipper, the phantom trouser molester of old London town?
          1. #$%^! Just as well for you I hadn’t just taken a sip of my tea when I read “Jack the Zipper” or I’d be invoicing you for a new keyboard. I think we’re back in Carry on territory here …
  22. For once a quickish solve for me in 12.08,though I have to admit that on coming here and reading of jack’s prior ignorance of Kant, I realised I was ignorant of his presence in the crossword at all: I had unwittingly biffed 1d, if that’s possible. ROUND UP’s parsing was also a bit hazy, not placing the break in the clue with any precision – close enough for engineering, as they said of the oxygen tanks on Apollo 13.
    Stand out clue TELEPHOTO – cunning device. Stand well away from clue the midwife one. Don’t think it managed to be funny enough for a CD.
    Best wishes, Tim, and many happy returns to these elysian fields.
    1. A positively Dele Alli kind of finish. Is this an augury of the destination of the title? 55 years of hurt wiped away as the Lilywhites become the greatest team the world has ever seen?
      2. Every time they play “Tottenham are the greatest team…” at the end of a match, I find myself trying to think of a more honest version I can sing with a clear conscience. Maybe, just maybe, we may be getting a little closer to a really decent team that can live up to past legends. But, hey, I’m a Tottenham supporter. I know not to dream until the final whistle has blown, and the dodgy lasagne has been avoided at last.
  24. On the easy side, my kind of chose, ending with PREWAR and RIND, in 16 minutes but with TELEPHOTO not parsed.
  25. I would have scraped in under the 10 minute bar if my early morning brain hadn’t decided that power and money were completely fungible and confidently inserted POWER TALKS at 14dn. Sorry to see you go and I hope I could still be as clever and coherent as you after 8 years of regular blogging. (I’d have to up my game considerably somewhere along the line to achieve that, of course!)
  26. Held up for ages in the NE corner.

    Good puzzle, well blogged. Thanks for your service Tim. Best wishes in your future endeavours, unless of course you’ve secretly enlisted with the Barmy Army.

  27. 30m here. So glad that ZIPPER didn’t occur to me early on as 5a was a bit of a sticking point and my LOI. I join others in voting for 16a as COD and in wishing a sad farewell to our blogger. Come back soon.
  28. Thanks for all the blogs Tim.

    17 mins, which wasn’t bad considering I started to drift with about a quarter of it unsolved. Like Galspray I had the most trouble in the NE and I finished with RIND after PREWAR once I’d got the ROUND UP/BUTTON crossers.

    I confess that I biffed MARK ANTONY and didn’t bother to go back and parse it. TELEPHOTO was also biffed but I saw how it worked almost as soon as I finished the puzzle, and I’m another who thinks it is the COD.

  29. 37 minutes here, which is more like my usual solving time in these long months of short days. Nothing too tricky, although I failed to parse TELEPHOTO, dithered over the spelling of PLANTAGENET, and initially had DNA upside down.

    Thanks to Tim for all the blogs, and I’ll look forward to his return to bloggerdom at some future point.

  30. After much dithering, I got ‘Plantagenet’ wrong, so I’ll just add to all the thanks to Tim for his sterling efforts over such along period. We are all greatly indebted to allthe bloggers.
  31. 11:50 for me, bumbling awkwardly along, among other things tempted by ZIPPER (relieved to see I wasn’t the only one) and spotting the ELEPH in 16ac but unable to get TELEPHONE and TELEPHONY out of my head until I had the final O in place.

    A delightful puzzle. My compliments to the setter – and to the blogger after a sterling innings.

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