Times 26421

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A sigh of relief, I wasn’t in the mood for a LULU from yesteryear in place of another qualifier, so I rattled through this quite fast, but the detailed parsing probably took longer than the solving correctly. The DD in 16a still worries me a little, otherwise it’s all above board and no doubt the speed merchants are in single figures.

Across
1 BAR CHART – BAR (check), CHAR (daily), T; D graph.
6 HAGGLE – G G (goods) inside HALE (robust); D bargain.
9 SARI – SA = ‘it’, sex appeal (one happy day this may be dropped from the setter’s lexicon?); RI = church’s teaching; D traditional dress.
10 ON ALL FOURS – ALL inside ON (charged) FOURS (boundaries); D keeping down. Today’s nod to cricket.
11 JACK RABBIT – JACK is one in a suit, with queen, king etc., RABBIT is a poor performer in a sport; D American runner.
13 LUDO – LOUD would be raucous, pass the O to the back; D game.
14 ST HELENA – (LANES)* around THE; D island.
16 SCRAPE – A double definition, both words in my view being a bit of a stretch to mean ‘pinch’, but so be it.
18 MYSTIC – M = medium, Y(S)TIC = CITY reversed with S(piritualism) inserted: D occult.
20 EASTERLY – ASTER is your plant, insert into ELY that little city in East Anglia beloved of our setters; ‘going west’ because it’s coming from the east.
22 TWIN – W = with, being fenced by TIN = metal; D link, as a verb; my village is twinned or linked with somewhere near Strasbourg, leading to a biennial invasion of people dancing in funny clothes.
24 RHYTHMICAL – Count me as one of you who biffed this and parsed it painstakingly afterwards. R= king, H = Henry, MYTHICAL = legendary, move the M(ale) to be ‘later than expected’ = YTHMICAL; insert; D in time.
26 DISDAINFUL – DI’S = policeman’s, PAINFUL = sore, swap the P for a D; D snooty.
28 MAID – DIAMonds are a girl’s best friend, reverse and take half; D girl.
29 HEMPEN – HEM = border, PEN = marker; D made of tough stuff.
30 REDESIGN – Another biff and parse job; your standard is RED ENSIGN, drop the central N (reject a certain number); D draw up new.

Down
2 ADAMANTLY – ADAM = original male, ANT = worker, L(ust)Y; D not giving in.
3 CRINKLE – Empty case = CE; insert RINK (sporting strip) and L; D fold.
4 AROMA – D bouquet, sounds like A ROAMER, more or less.
5 TEA – ATE = was dining, move the first, A, to the finish; D meal.
6 HALITOSIS – (HOSITAL IS)* i.e. hospital without the P (being patient’s first letter); D malodorous condition.
7 GROWLER – Double definition; a nasty sounding dog, and a small iceberg.
8 LURID – Case lost by JURY = UR; inside LID = cover; D sensational.
12 BRAVERY – Here it is again, the good old BRA for supporter; VERY = remarkably; D daring.
15 EXCURSION – Make your anagram fodder from NIX (without the ON) and COURSE: D deviation. In a few months time, Tricky Dicky might not look like the second worst President ever.
17 PILLAGING – PILL AGING could be medical treatment becoming obsolete; D devastating.
19 TUNED UP – TURNED UP would be ‘came’, remove the R for resistance; D prepared to play.
21 ENIGMAS – GIN = trap, reverse inside SAME = aforementioned; D puzzles.
23 WHITE – HIT = success, inside W and E being partners at bridge; D ghastly. I immediately thought of the lyrics of one of my all time favs; but her face was ghostly not ghastly, of course.
25 HOLED – Insert E (last of thosE) into HOLD = support; D run through.
27 FUR – FUR(Y) = endless rage; D this coat?

34 comments on “Times 26421”

  1. A DNF in my hour, with 9ac and quite a few in the SE corner not completed. I might eventually have popped in SARI for traditional dress, but would never have worked out why; not only have I never heard SA for sex appeal, I wouldn’t have been helped by it being called RE by the time I was at school, rather than RI.

    I think I might have got the remainder including parsing if I’d stared at them for long enough, though perhaps not 24ac.

    Enjoyed 26ac. Biffed: 11ac, 23d, not knowing those meanings of “rabbit” or “white”, and 8d, having just not been able to work it out. Thanks for the explanations!

    SCRAPE I thought of as “in a pinch”/”in a scrape”, and to scrape/bark one’s shin.

  2. Plenty of “could not parse” answers including REDESIGN, LUDO – both v. good – and SCRAPE, for which gothic_matt’s explanation sounds convincing. Thought ‘ghastly’ was a typo and can only sort of see WHITE as the answer for this. I thought RHYTHMICAL was a beauty but my favourite was EASTERLY for its misdirection.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  3. SCRAPE and “pinch” are both to do with miserliness, I think.

    I eventually ran into a wall on this one and struggled to finish under an hour, never working out why 20ac was REDESIGN – quite clever, now it’s been explained.

    Delayed ages by having SPEAR at 25dn which I think is a far better answer than HOLED.

    Edited at 2016-05-25 08:06 am (UTC)

  4. All done and parsed in two sessions… walking the dog does seem to clear my head of those pesky misdirections that seem to block things (is there a word for those? I know the predicament’s been mentioned by others).

    LOI: SCRAPE with a shrug.

    1. Coccinarengation? Rubroclupeation? Something smelling of red herrings, anyway.
  5. Off the pace and DNF. Gave in after 45 minutes with gaps in the SE, missing out on the RHYTHMICAL joys of PILLAGING while flying the RED ENSIGN. I doubt I’d have got there with double the time.
  6. 30 min, having wasted last 5 on 27dn as I’d biffed REASSIGN at 30ac (so thanks for parsing that, and also 24ac.)
    SCRAPE: bark one’s shins, and I assumed ‘pinch’ in the sense of scrimpimg and saving.
  7. After a couple of pseudo-Verlainesque efforts, I came down to earth with a crash on this one, feebly clinging to the excuse that I nodded off a couple of times after a bit of a disturbed night.
  8. Not quite as simple as you made it, Pip, with even the Eagle into double figures: perhaps a case of Blogger’s adrenalin. I struggled to push the electrons around in my skull again, and came through in 35 minutes with some severe bruising to the lower limbs and the ego. REDESIGN was a tad too brilliant for me, thanks for the breakdown.
    Other solecisms: I wondered about the TAB CHART even if Excel doesn’t produce one, check and tab being close enough. JACK RABBIT: spent a while not remembering Jesse Owens soon enough to discount him. Couldn’t break away from psychic soon enough at 18, failing to spot the definition/wordplay break because it was so smooth. HOLED took ages even with checkers: I mean, it’s true someone who is run throughs has acquired a hole, but it sounds a bit like the black knight: ’tis only a scratch!
    Of such things are the early signs of senility made. Thanks for an entertaining blog
  9. 26 mins, so for the second straight day an early solve didn’t help, but I found it an enjoyable challenge. I parsed SCRAPE the same way as phmfantom. Like some others above I struggled in the SE (with one from the SW), and it was only when I’d finally sussed RHYTHMICAL that I was able to get HOLED, which was then followed by my LOI, DISDAINFUL.
  10. Even in our boisterous household no game of ludo could ever have been described as raucous, so thanks Pip for parsing it correctly for me.
    I too went for REASSIGN until the impossibility of 25d made me rebiff the correct answer (again thanks Pip)
    SCRAPE went in with crossed fingers.
    Really liked 22a – COD
  11. Biffed several – including HALITOSIS, EASTERLY, MAID (I couldn’t stop thinking of a dog being a man’s best friend), and I’d not come across WHITE to mean ghastly but threw it in after a foolish dalliance with SWINE.
    However, I went for HEMPIN rather than HEMPEN, so my 12m 34s is really a DNF.
  12. …looking back it shouldn’t have been.

    Lost in the NW for a while (for a confirmed southerner a bit like driving round Liverpool) with the very-early-confidently-biffed BACKMARKER at 11. Well, the ‘murcans have running backs in their (inaccurately named) football, and a BACKMARKER isn’t performing very well. So a marker must be something to do with a pack of something else.

    Once I’d remembered RABBIT from cricketing parlance (the one sport I actually follow) that immediately gave me BRAVERY and ST HELENA which got things going again.

    Always remember some cricket commentary from sky referring to (I think) Devon Malcolm coming in to bat at number 11, “and here he comes – a proper ferret. He goes in after the rabbits”

  13. Thought I was under the weather, sun having disappeared, especially after reading blog. 33’28” today. Perversely cheered that others had difficulties. 16ac took a while, I had to remember the time I badly scraped (barked) my shins when I was seven (mum sorted this with surgical spirit). One of my former students is the maths adviser on ST HELENA, which may have helped. COD RHYTHMICAL, even with R-Y- took a long while. LOI WHITE, bit of a stretch. But overall a good workout today, thanks setter and blogger.
  14. Blimey, I struggled here. One of those where I could barely spot what I was looking for to start with, so cunning were lots of the definitions. I also came up with the extremely convincing SPEAR for 25dn, which made the SE corner even more intractable. Still, when I eventually got to the end, I felt as if I’d achieved something satisfying rather than wishing I hadn’t bothered, which I suppose means that the setter and I both succeeded in our aims.
    1. SPEAR as well, which I never doubted, so an DNF and going so well up to that point.
    2. And I was sure the clue should have been worded differently—”Last of those in prison run through,” “Last of those in fortress run through”—to prevent this possibility… until I realized that “spear” does not implicitly mean “run through” but only being stuck with a spear, so it’s fine as is (though those are somewhat more dramatic surfaces).

      Edited at 2016-05-25 07:07 pm (UTC)

  15. I am still feeling very, very ill after yesterday’s festivities. That’s my excuse for taking most of a quarter hour to finish this one, anyway. I don’t think it was that easy in any case, some quite involved wordplay to sort out here!
  16. Yesterday I was held up by the NW corner. Today it was the SE. In other respects both puzzles seemed about the same level of difficulty, though today’s had several that I didn’t fully understand – 14 (poor performer), 28 and 30. For 17 had RAMPAGING for a while, wondering if there wee a medical op called a RAMP, but S_R_R_ didn’t look very likely for 16 (a very tough dd).
    38 minutes in all.
  17. I found this tough going, and in my weakened state failed with a dubiously biffed POLEAXING for PILLAGING. Given the effort expended I was pleased to finish with only the one wrong.
  18. My first reply got swallowed up by the either so let’s try again.

    21:30 which doesn’t look too bad. Like Jack & Tim I caused myself problems with an early SPEAR – spar still seems like a better bet for support than hold does.

    Thanks for the parsings of LUDO and MAID, both of which eluded me. I can’t really see why ON = CHARGED and decided a growler was a fog although something tells me its use as an iceberg has come up before. Hereabouts it’s a pork pie.

    1. Took me a moment. It’s “charged to”, e.g. “the drink’s on Penfold”.
  19. 21m. I got through most of this without many problems, but then got badly stuck in the SE.
    I still don’t really understand how ‘pinch’ means SCRAPE. ‘In a pinch’ doesn’t mean the same thing as ‘in a scrape’. And whilst you can pinch pennies and scrape a living, I’m not convinced they mean the same thing in isolation. Or is the expression ‘to pinch and scrape’ a tautology?
    Also a bit puzzled by ‘devastating’ for PILLAGING.

    Edited at 2016-05-25 01:36 pm (UTC)

    1. I hope the “pinch and scrape” tautology theory holds, because then we could logically prove that “bow” and “pinch” are synonyms!

      Pillaging and devastation seem close enough to me, in a “raiders laying waste” kind of vein.

      1. Laying waste is smashing everything up, pillaging is nicking everything you don’t smash up. They often go hand in hand but that doesn’t make them the same thing.
  20. A rare late-night solve for me. Almost fell into several of the traps already mentioned, especially Pootle’s POLEAXING, but managed to get through all parsed in the end.

    Just assumed ghastly was a typo, but it didn’t matter much. COD to EASTERLY I think. For some reason my Dad always found it amusing to say “there’s a northerly coming from the west”. Guess it’s a Dad joke.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

  21. 26+ mins, but enjoyable stuff. Sorry I missed yesterday but will be in the Great Wen tomorrow ;-((
    Thanks pip for parsing of REDESIGN, although I think that I have seen this before and forgotten it.
  23. I was not on song today, really struggled with this, and did myself no favors by being convinced that 25 down was SP(E)AR, stayed in there until I finally saw DISDAINFUL.
  24. A major struggle today, with the SE bringing me to a complete halt after an hour. I went away and hung some washing out and made a cup of tea, coming back to the puzzle after 30 minutes and finishing it in another 20. On the bright side I was all correct and managed to parse everything as I went. Was never tempted by SPEAR as I got DISDAINFUL before looking at 25d. FOI SARI and then 10a. LOI EASTERLY closely preceded by RHYTHMICAL, both of which took me for ever to spot! Wondered if SCRUMP had another meaning for a while, but eventually saw SCRAPE which is fine as far as I’m concerned. Liked REDESIGN. Some clever definitions, so thanks Setter and Pip.
  25. Glad others found it tricky too. I was going to blame my attempt to match Verlaine drink for drink after I got home (and probably succeeded – I don’t suffer from hangovers myself, but it can leave my brain not firing on all cylinders the next morning, just without the ow factor). However, after completing this in a shade under a half-hour, I breezed through Pasquale’s Guardian puzzle in about 12 minutes. It did seem to be one of his easier ones though.

  26. This one had me beat, specifically the SE. All I needed was a bigger brain.
  27. LXVII in unches in central row. Age, or number of Times puzzles from, this particular setter?

    Shouldn’t “friend” rather than “friends” have been in the clue for 28ac? Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, not friends, according to the song.

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