Times 26365 – A whiff of garlic and the waft of Gitanes

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Something of an international flavor to this one – a slightly tougher Monday than usual. Perhaps my prayers to the gods of London Bridge Street have more clout now that I am a centurion? But lest I should get too far ahead of myself, a careless typo catapults me off the leaderboard and reminds me that I am still but as a fly to the wanton boys at News UK (neé International). 35’41”.

ACROSS

1. PRAGMATIST – RAG (‘kid’) + MAT (‘floor cover’) + IS in PT.
6. CROW – C+ROW. ODO tells me that c/C is ‘the third fixed constant to appear in an algebraic expression, or a known constant’.
9. CHANSON – S in CH + ANON (‘shortly’); literal ‘Number in French’. Here’s a nice one by Fauré.
10. MATINEE – IN + [mortgag]E in MATE (‘couple’ as a verb).
12. DENIGRATOR – DENI[m] + GRAM[n] + TOR[e]. A creative and clever clue.
13. AXE – reversal of EXA[m] – and a chief candidate for biffing.
15. LYRICS – obtained by omitting every other letter from pLaYeRs In CaSt.
16. UNPACKED – UN + PACKED (sounds like ‘pact’).
18. DOMINION – OM + IN + [sem]I[nar] in DON.
20. POMPON – ON preceded by POMP. No, I’d never come across this spelling either.
23. OIL – a nice reverse hidden in MilLIOnaires.
24. RED SNAPPER – RED + SNAPPER. Boom, boom! or хи-хи-хи! as they say in Russia.
26. PADDLER – L in P + ADDER (where ‘summer’ is to ‘adder’ as ‘banker’ is to ‘river’).
27. AMNESIC – anagram* of CINEMAS.
28. ROCK – [c]ROCK.
29. ASSESSMENT – ASSES + M in SENT.

DOWNS

1. PACY – C in PAY.
2. AMATEUR – A + MATURE with the R raised. My last in – unparsed to boot.
3. MASSIF CENTRAL – FRANCES MIST[r]AL* (anagram indicator ‘blows’; deletion indicator ‘one right away’) and a semi &lit by my reckoning, even if a slightly inaccurate one, if, as Wikipedia tells us, the tramontane is actually more a Massif Central wind than the mistral, which tends to be more Rhone valleyish.
4. TANTRA – ANT in TRA[nce].
5. SEMITONE – the literal is ‘interval’; ITEMS* + ONE.
7. RANSACK – RAN + SACK (‘vintage’ in the sense that is ‘a dry white wine formerly imported into Britain from Spain and the Canaries’).
8. WEEKENDING – WEEDING around KEN (‘field’ as in range of knowledge). I’ve no idea what ‘all’ is doing or adding.
11. TOREADOR PANTS – Although I’ve never donned a pair, I am told they are tight-fitting calf-length trousers; RE + ADOR[e] in TOP + ANTS. I am reliably informed by Paul the Genius – a member of our quiz team – that ‘toréador’ was coined for the opera Carmen because it better fitted the rhythm of the aria popularly named after it than ‘matador’. Listen and decide. And…for an alternative view of traditional Hispanic culture, check out Michael Flanders’s take on the ‘primeval drama of man pitted against the olive’.
14. CLODHOPPER – CLO[the]D (‘dressed without the’) + HOPPER (‘jumper’).
17. HONDURAS – literal ‘republic’. NO reversed + DURAS on H (last letter of fourtH). Marguerite Duras was a French writer, best known for writing the 1959 film Hiroshima mon amour. A tricky one to parse, especially since the traditional Japanese drama is more commonly spelt NOH. Not to mention the existence of a more famous French writer called Dumas.
19. MELODIC – E + IDOL reversed inside MC. Vies with 13a for BOD (biff of the day).
21. PRESSIE – PRESS + IE.
22. ENRAGE – A+GREEN*.
25. SCAT – first letters of the last four words in the clue.

41 comments on “Times 26365 – A whiff of garlic and the waft of Gitanes”

  1. Yes, more Monday-ish than Monday-esque.

    Nice to see a real fish, as opposed to a ling, tench, rudd or ide which I’ve never heard of outside crosswordland.

    MASSIF CENTRAL and CHANSON constructed from wordplay. LOI AXE.

    Thanks setter and U.

    Edited at 2016-03-21 05:45 am (UTC)

  2. Harder than yer average Monday. Had to work out CHANSON, AMATEUR and MELODIC after the fact.

    As for the TOREADOR: in the original Mérimée, he was called Lucas and was a picador — and of minor importance to the story. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy have much to answer for.

  3. DNF as I bunged in 11dn TERRAPIN PANTS (Hint of The Grateful Dead)

    Reason? I decided that 20ac was obviously TIEPIN! And why not! POMPON is obolete in my dictionary (Chambers)!

    FOI 1ac PRAGMATIST LOI & COD HONDURAS Didn’t parse 15ac LYRICS

    as the answer was so obvious.

    So a rare Monday failure – which bodes dodgy for the rest of the week.

    At least the Quick Cyptic was a PB!

    Roll on Tuesday.

    horryd Shanghai

    1. Snap! TIEPIN is definitely a decoration on display at the front which means the trousers can only be TERRAPIN PANTS which if they don’t exist definitely should! Perhaps it is a Shanghai thing as I lived there from 2009-2011.
  4. Once again the last two or three delayed me about 5 minutes over my half-hour deadline. Never heard of DURAS but the the answer was biffable aided by a couple of checkers. POMPON was my last one in but I eventually dredged it from memory as I met it previously in ST 4416 in January 2011 and had a brief discusson about it with PB at the time.
  5. This definitely had a sting in the tail. Over half the answers went in pretty smoothly before the waters became unexpectedly choppy. Several unknowns (POMPON, DURAS, TOREADOR PANTS) and a careless (b)RICK for 28a took up the best part of 35 minutes.
    Good blog as usual Ulaca, though I took “constant” to be the speed of light, i.e. “c”.
    1. You may be right, but it would be effectively a double step, and as such inaccessible to science dummies like me. And I imagine it’s covered in the definition I quote by ‘known constant’.

      Edited at 2016-03-21 08:22 am (UTC)

        1. Indeed e=m2 ulaca where c=speed of light. Bow your head in shame if you didn’t know that!!
  6. 30 minutes with only POMPON delaying me. Thanks U for parsing CHANSON (I had missed the “shortly”). Gave some latitude (actually longitude) to 3d for a smooth surface.
  7. About 30mins for me, but I too had rick at 28a, with same (mis-)parsing as Deezzaa. Nho TORREADOR PANTS, my LOI.
  8. Thanks for parsing Honduras (I had the writer and missed the drama) and the pants – of which I’ve certainly owned more than one pair over time and probably still do. I think they’re the same as Capri pants. Oh and thanks for the telltale smear of olive oil Pip! 14.24
  9. 9m. No problems today: I remembered POMPON from a previous occasion, and TOREADOR PANTS seemed vaguely familiar, or at least perfectly plausible.
    My solving is often characterised by the bunging in of answers with a sort of nebulous, inchoate understanding of the wordplay. This is perfectly illustrated by 17dn, where I put in the answer and moved on in the belief that the drama was NOH and the French writer was DUMAS. It’s a wonder I ever finish all-correct.

    Edited at 2016-03-21 09:30 am (UTC)

  10. A leisurely stroll turned into 22.01 by The Pants and the Pompon, Duras’ lesser known work. I also fell into the setter’s trap at 9, trying to work out which of un, deux, trois… would fit into an abbreviated church. That took some time. Not helped by reckoning TIEPIN was a so-so answer to a barely cryptic clue. CLODHOPPER I associate more with the peasant wearing them, shows what I know. Tried RED HERRING (was there ever a photographer called Herring? Just as likely as a novelist called Duras) which at least is fishy two ways.
    Thanks Ulaca for unravelling this twisty offering, especially CHANSON: I wasn’t even close to the wordplay when I finally twigged what a French number was. I reckon you owe someone an eye tooth.
  11. On my wavelength today, with all the Frenchness; 20 minutes stroll until I was left with *O*P*N and was unable to come up with the spelling of POMPON instead of pompom. Living near Duras I was aware of said Margaret and the other Gallic flavoured clues. Not as chewy as yesterday’s!

    Edited at 2016-03-21 10:06 am (UTC)

  12. After 15 min all done but 20ac, after a hold-up in NW with a careless MANTRA at 4dn. Then could only find COUPON to fit so eventually put it in unparsed (POMPOM did cross my mind, but there was no way that the final M could go – and I did think it would be TIEPIN before I got 11dn.)

  13. 21:18. It felt satisfying to finish this after having to unravel TOREADOR PANTS, CHANSON and my LOI POMPON. The latter caused several moments of hesitancy before I finally submitted still unsure if it was correct.
  14. I’m usually fresher on a Monday morning. Only 15 minutes today, although I was thinking of pompom as I put in pompon. A faint memory stirred at that point. My wife wasn’t about to check toreador pants with and Physics student son home for Easter wasn’t the one to ask. Or are they all the go this year? Also biffed Honduras as never heard of Hondumas or read The Three Rusketeers. Enjoyable.
  15. 21:16 with many unparsed so thanks ulaca. I’m with deezzaa on c being the universal constant, the speed of light (E=mc squared anyone?). PANTS is of course one of those words which can have different meanings in the UK and the US (what is the Oz meaning?) but the answer is in Chambers so no complaints.
    1. In the north of England in my youth, I’d refer to trousers as pants, with underpants unsurprisingly worn underneath. It would still be my preferred usage even afer half a century mainly in the south. I can recall a discussion on Sky Sports with Ian Botham and Bumble taking the same view to Nasser’s incredulity.
      1. You say ‘unsurprisingly’. Superman famously wears his underpants outside his pants and if it is good enough for him . . .

        Edited at 2016-03-21 03:13 pm (UTC)

  16. 17:03 – did this last night and was surprised to find myself on top of the list at the time, whizzed through until playing the alphabet game with TOREADOR PANTS. Had question marks next to MASSIF CENTRAL and POMPON, though I thought I had seen that spelling before.
  17. Gave up with _O_P_N left after 50 minutes the last 10 of which were spent unproductively on this one clue. Never heard of this spelling, so one to file away to forget next time. Enjoyed the rest of the puzzle with PACY FOI. No trouble with CHANSON or DURAS once I’d seen the definition as republic, but missed the fine detail of the drama in the parsing. Thanks U for filling in the blanks.
  18. I thought this was going to be an average Monday solve of around 25 minutes, but the NW really held me up, particularly 1a, 2d, 9, 12, even though they were not especially difficult clues. TOREADOR took some time to get, long after I had PANTS 40 minutes in the end. I found the lower half relatively easy. I thought some of the clues very good, notably 2d, 9,17,18.
  19. Failed with RICK for ROCK and nothing at all for POMPON. Definitely not normal Monday fare when viewed from these quarters.

    I like the sound of terrapin pants I must say. The bottom half of a shell suit?

    2. I always wear my terrapin stripe pants with a turtle neck sweater. I’m a snappy dresser?
  20. Slowed myself down to past the ten minute mark with a MANTRA at 4dn (good to see I wasn’t alone at least), and much confusion over 1ac, which now just had to be PANTOMIMIST, except of course for having the wrong number of letters.

    I too failed to parse 2dn until a while after the event, and was in mortal terror that 17dn would prove somehow wrong, as I’d fixated on the writer being DUMAS. Oh well, Mondays eh?

  21. Exactly the same troubles as those recited by Penfold. Clodhopper was mysterious to me as I too had always thought of this as describing a clumsy person rather than footwear, and I also missed the CLO[the]D thinking instead of an unlikely pluperfect rendition of CLAD (I still chuckle at the Bostonian Scrod joke 40 years after first hearing it…)

    Thanks for the blog ulaca – and just to illustrate how studiously I read it, there is a minor typo (rogue M) in your explanation of 12a.

  22. 31 minutes slow for a Monday, but like others never heard of toreador pants, pompon, amnesic.
  23. About 30 minutes ending with POMPON, because it had to be the answer. Along the way I biffed in CHANSON and HONDURAS since the parsing went over my head. Agreed, not the usual Monday offering. And I had never heard of the TOREADOR PANTS, but I was able to fight through that parsing at length. Regards.
  24. All very fairly clued , which was just as well for me . Enjoyable solve , cod 11 down , the rest were pants . 26 mins on treeware.
  25. A 22 mins fail because POMPON didn’t occur to me and I mombled “bowpin”. I could have done with an easier one for my first day back, especially as my flight out of JFK was delayed for almost 5 hours last night.
  26. I found this a bit chewy, taking a while to get going. POMPON my LOI too, which took me 4 minutes over my 25 minute target. Lots of lovely clues, though. 29a my COD, being the second word of the name of my employer in Cambridge for the last 11 weeks.
  28. About an hour of solving time, but a much longer total time since my LOI POMPON didn’t occur to me until after the usual two hour break I need to freshen my neural networks for the last two or three entries. POMPON not a real problem, though, since I have a niece in Brussels, now a distinguished dental surgeon, who in her youth many decades ago was nicknamed Pompon. PRESSIE also made me hesitate, since I never say that and in speech it’s a prezent and not a pressent, isn’t it. Nothing else was all that much of a problem.

    And as for C, although it is the speed of light it can be other constants, too. Mathematicians have a sort of convention for using a, b, c for constants, w, x, y, z for real or complex number variables, other ranges for rational or whole number variables and the remaining Roman letters or the entire Greek alphabet for whatever is convenient (well, in general terms anyway).

    Edited at 2016-03-21 10:38 pm (UTC)

    1. A sluggish 13:38 for me, not really on the ball at all today. TOREADOR PANTS took me far longer than they should have done, and I spent ages trying to parse 19dn (MELODIC), convinced that the “hero” was CID.

      In the end I bunged in POMPO without realising that the word I’d created was actually POMPON rather than POMPOM, but I’m familiar enough with the former not to have been fazed by it I’ve I’d actually spotted it.

  29. Pompon? Zut alors. I can only assume that that spelling is a malign French influence. From which grumpy comment you can probably deduce that I failed, thanks to 20ac. I am too embarrassed to tell you that I put in COUPON, and would not dream of mentioning that I justified it as “on” with “coup” (not quite a “display”, but very nearly) at the front. Come to think of it, “coup” is another gallic infiltrator, so frankly I blame the French for this entire disastrophe. And who’d have thought (as per 17d) that there were _two_ French authors?

    There are those who might blame my failure on my recent purchase of a few bottles of Plymouth Navy Strength gin – a very pleasant upgrade from my usual tipple. However, a far longer period of data-gathering will be required before any correlation can be reliably established.

    Can it really still be only Lundi?

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