Times 26475 – three heads are better than one.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solved in bed with the tea and toast, in 20 minutes or so, more or less anti-clockwise with 3a and the first word of 6d being the last to drop in. Nothing too obscure, except some non-musical people may not be familiar with the chap at 25a; for me he was a write-in, as a bunch of us had a period while at university enthusing about 20th century composers especially Czech ones. This one stuck in my mind because he wrote a piece for the theremin, an interesting piece of kit, q.v. on Wikipedia.

Enough rambling on, here’s the good bit.

Across
1 COCK – CLOCK could be an alarm; leave out the L to get the doodle-do bird that wakes you up.
3 AMBASSADOR – Easy to biff, D diplomat; parsed as A, BASS = voice, inside MAD = fanatical, OR = soldiers.
9 MANAGER – MAN = staff, ArGuE regularly = AGE, R = run, D supervisor.
11 MOPHEAD – MO = second, PAD = home, insert HE; D floppy-haired chap. First of three clues involving a HEAD. So what, you say.
12 SHORT HEAD – (HAD HORSE T)*, the T from AinTree; D hardly any distance. Clever way to make the answer relevant to the surface.
13 LENIN – LEN(T) = made advances, no end; IN = elected; Lenin was most definitely a Communist.
14 LEATHERCLOTH – (THE THE COLLAR)*, ‘twice the’ indicating the repeat and ‘frayed’ as the anagrind; D strong fabric.
18 AMELIORATION – A, M = mass, ELI = priest, ORATION = sermon; D improvement.
21 HADES – HEADS (again) are bosses; move the E(ast); D underground.
22 TOWN HOUSE – (NOW HE’S OUT)*; D dwelling.
24 LOOFAHS – LOO = toilet, F = female, (HAS)* ‘splurged’; D cleaners.
25 MARTINU – UNIT RAM = one hit, recalled; D Czech musician, Bohuslav Martinů, 1890-1959. If you enjoy stuff like Janáček and Bartók, you’ll like this; I used to have a few of his works on vinyl on the old Supraphon label, I wish I had kept them; perhaps vinyl1 has some.
26 TO THE POINT – Cryptic definition, of the witty kind.
27 ANTE – DANTE is the linesman (crossword-ese for a poet); delete the D = header, D bet.

Down
1 CAMISOLE – CAM = coat, MAC, pulled up; SOLE = one, insert I = single; D item of underwear.
2 CANTONAL – CANAL = waterway, insert TON = a large amount; D state’s, pertaining to a state. With C-N it had to be canal, so I didn’t spend time thinking of the name of a state.
4 MARNE – MAE West safeguards RN; D battle, WW1, 5-12 September 1914.
5 ARMADILLO – ARMAD(A) = not entirely fleet; ILL = badly, O = oxygen; D creature.
6 SUPPLY TEACHER – SUP = drink, PLY = work, TEA = a cuppa, CHE(E)R = encourage, disheartened; D member of school staff.
7 DUENNA – DUE = expected, N = noon, NA = an upstanding, D governess.
8 RODENT – ROT = rubbish, insert DEN = hideout; D this creature.
10 GOT THE MESSAGE – G = good, OT = books, THE MES = subjects, SAGE = wise fellow; D understood.
15 RELATES TO – RE = on, O = radio at last, insert LATEST = up-to-the-minute news; D concerns.
16 DISUNION – IS UNI inserted into DON; D dissention.
17 INSECURE – IN = popular, SEE = spot, insert CUR = rogue; D unsafe.
19 CHALET – Today’s hidden word, easier than usual; FUN(CHAL ET)C; D holiday accommodation.
20 ADROIT – A DRO(P) = a short dram, IT = vermouth; D clever.
23 WOMAN – NOW = present, held up = WON, inset MA for mother; D lady.

45 comments on “Times 26475 – three heads are better than one.”

  2. I had to solve this early as I’m on meet and greet interview ‘victims’ all day which does tend to interfere with crossword solving in one’s lunch hour 🙁

    One of those crosswords with words you’ve never heard of fairly clued. Took me just under 8 mins.

    Edited at 2016-07-27 07:44 am (UTC)

  3. Stroll in the park this one. Didn’t know MARTINU but trusted the easy cryptic construction. Solved top to bottom, left to right.
  4. Nothing terribly sinister, and I thought my time would be better than 15.12. It was, by one second. CANTONAL looks slightly made up, but was not as much a struggle to solve as the little ANTE at the bottom: even with the checkers it took a while.
    6d was crying out for one of those “clue for hectare” type wordplays.
  5. Was in Florence quite recently and saw the statue, tomb etc., as well as people whose job is to recite Dante from memory. Not heard of the Czech, but wordplay solid. A solid workout today. 16′. Thanks pip and setter.
  6. About 35 minutes for me. I found this reasonably straightforward, with the exception of CANTONAL which had me stumped when I couldn’t bring the name of a specific state or country immediately to mind. Good to have MARTINU rather than Smetana as the ‘Czech musician’ and liked the image of an ARMADILLO as being a ‘Creature not entirely fleet…’.

    Isn’t 12 just an anagram of HAD HORSE, + T (not A) which is the middle letter of AinTree?

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

    1. Yes sorry for error, I had it noted correctly but lost the plot writing it up!
  7. …last 5 or so on my two LOsI: ANTE and the u/k Czech.

    2dn posed no problems as we spent a few happy years as expats in the Canton of Geneva.

  8. 14:53. Similar experience to others with CANAL seen early for 2D, but CANTONAL still my LOI.

    I thought MARTINU sounded familiar and indeed he’s appeared a few times, most recently last October in 26226.

    1. Martinu always sounds familiar to me – every piece I hear seems to repeat the same cadence so often you can’t miss it.
  9. After yesterday’s, where I was so far off I didn’t even bother with a comment this was a stroll in about 30 mins. LOI 18a, because I always forget ELI as priest, COD 12a. Being slightly picky, not all leathercloths are strong,it just depends what the base fabric and coating are, I’ve come across some I wouldn’t blow my nose on (one of the more polite technical terms for “it’s very weak”).
  10. 23 minutes, which would have been nearer 15 but for 4dn which eluded me to the very end by which time I had returned to it on more than half-a-dozen occasions. I had CANAL from the first reading but had problems thinking of anything but LOT for “large amount”.
    1. An uncanb similar experience for me too – don’t forget CANPOTAL as well.
  11. 16’37” with CANTONAL last in for the reasons given above. MARTINU must have been of Romanian extraction. I know a fair bit about classical music, but have never heard of this fellow.

    Off to hear the King’s College Choir doing Brahms’ Requiem with piano four hands this evening. They were rather ordinary last time they came. They have fallen well behind St John’s and books-down Trinity in the pecking order.

    A pity we get bombarded by all these Cantab choirs – Clare and Caius are others that wend their way to Asia-Pacific in the vacs. High time for New, Oxford, to pitch up and fly the dark blue flag.

  12. What an impressive crowd our esteemed blogger went to University with. I feel totally inadequate. I’d never heard of Martinu and spent some time before seeing the cryptic. As a New College man, I can’t help Ulaca with pieces from our choir either. Down the foggy ruins of time, my first summer there was spent dissecting Bringing It All Back Home with like-minded chaps. Enjoyable half hour far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
    1. It wasn’t all black coffee and esoteric twelve-tone LPs all night, more often basking on the grass in Peckwater listening to Whiter Shade of Pale blasting and drinking Newcastle Brown. But one of my best mates, another chemist and subsequently to become a bishop, did get me into liking Bartók string quartets.
      1. Did my finals in 1967 so I wasn’t able to skip the light fandango at the Commem that year. Not that I know what it is or even how to trip the light fantastic. I could probably manage the trip.
        1. You must have missed Led Zep at the Ch Ch commem then. Am still slightly deaf as a result… but was worth it?
  13. This didn’t seem superficially trivial so I was pleased to find I’d done it in only a little over 5 minutes, and that semi-horizontal in bed with a laptop.

    As a sort of tribute to 25ac, I’m typing this on a Dvorak keyboard layout; this comment has probably taken me about as long as the crossword did. But with so much less hand movement!

  14. About 20 mins with nothing outside my GK though I haven’t knowingly listened to any Martinu. My only choral efforts were during post match celebrations/sorrow drowning in the Lord Napier with the Keble football team.
  15. A few unknowns (CANTONAL, MARNE, SUPPLY TEACHER, MARTINU) but as crypticsue said, very fairly clued.

    Thanks setter and Pip.

  16. 28 minutes, so as Jerry says, a welcome relief after yesterday! FOI COCK, LOI MARTINU, who I didn’t know, but the wordplay was clear. An enjoyable workout. Thanks Pip and setter.
  17. 8:18. Yes, the composer was clearly clued but that didn’t stop me considering MALELOS when I only had the M for company. I had to believe what the wordplay was telling be for leathercloth and cantonal as well.

    1ac set off a Kenneth Williams “Oooh matron” moment in my head. I also enjoyed, in particular, loofahs and to the point.

    In fact I thought this was very well put together overall with plenty of wit and imagination, so thanks setter. I’ll drink to your health later in the Cock and Camisole.

  18. First finish in a while.
    Last one in was adroit, and was a guess as i couldn’t parse it.
    How is vermouth IT?
    2. Vermouth comes in two (or more) variants – dry (white) and sweeter (red). The sweeter one is usually Italian (e.g. Martini rosso). As a cocktail mixed with gin it became known as gin and Italian, or simply a ‘gin and it’. Hence vermouth itself is colloquially referred to as ‘It.’
      I recommend 3 parts gin and 1 part ‘it’, shaken with lots of ice. Or for a dry Martini use the white ‘It’.
  19. Somewhere within my hour, I think, though I’m on holiday in sunny Suffolk and out of my element solving on a laptop rather than with pen and paper, and with plenty of breakfast company instead of my usual solitude.

    Didn’t find much to trouble me, with CANTONAL making sense from knowing “canton”, and MARTINU dropping into place once the U was there. Did most of the anagramming mentally, though I had to go and grab pen and paper for LEATHERCLOTH…

    1. *Points upwards* Sorry, that was me. Another problem with being on the laptop was not being logged in to LiveJournal.
  20. About 35 minutes but had to check the Czech and that cantonal was an appropriate word for the definition. I too got stuck on lot for large for too long. I enjoyed it as it was just the right level of difficulty for me although I didn’t get many on the first read through.
  21. 14:15 Put together MARTINU from the clue without knowing him and CANTONAL was a write-in having spent the last 4/5 years of my professional career deeply involved in Swiss cantonal taxation (mainly Lucerne and Zurich though, not Geneva). Many unparsed so thanks Pip.
  22. 12m. All quite straightforward today apart from the SE corner, where I got stuck for a while. I did actually remember MARTINU from a past puzzle but it took a while and I needed the wordplay as a prompt. Nice puzzle.
  23. Thanks to my subscription to the Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall, as I type this I’m listening to Martinu’s excellent Cello Concerto #1 in D Major with the delightful Sol Gabetta as soloist. She played Elgar’s Cello Concerto on the First Night of the Proms recently. Wouldn’t know about Martinu repeating the same cadence as Joe Casey says, but it sounds fine to me.

    I thought 21ac was rather clever as was the use of the apostrophe in 2d.
    Thanks for the blog, Pip. 24m 49s

    1. Hurrah! Another Martinu-aware man. I thought Sol in the Elgar was rather good if a little slow.
      1. I knew Martinu’s name but wasn’t familiar with his work, Pip. That’s where the Berlin Phils Digital Concert Hall comes in handy. It lists four concerts with works by him. The same thing happened a few weeks ago when another composer’s name cropped up. I hadn’t heard of him either (name escapes me…Baroque Italian I think) but I found some works by him performed by the B.P.
        I’m no expert at all but I thought Sol Gabetta’s interpretation of the Elgar was very expressive.
        Onward, ever onward!
  24. 56 minutes, despite there being nothing really difficult. An inordinate amount of that time was spent staring at SUPPLY TEACHER, reading the first word as if it were pronounced sup-plee and wondering what the adverb was doing there and what a SUPPLE teacher or its adverbial form might be. Not my day (despite finishing the puzzle).
  25. A bit of a doddle this one. Nice to see Mae West featuring , I thought she was more of a Guardian cryptic device .
  27. I was very late to this today but got through it in 10 mins with the vaguely familiar MARTINU my LOI after INSECURE. However, it was only as I was powering up my laptop a little while later that I noticed I’d written “get” instead of GOT at the start of 10dn, so technically it would have been a stupid fail under competition conditions even though it was corrected by the time I came here.
  28. About 15 minutes, not much to say other than that the Czech and the SUPPLY TEACHER weren’t familiar, at all. Wordplay for those. Regards.
  29. A straight forward confidence building solve ; no doubt tomorrow will bring us back down to earth. 14 earth minutes.
  30. Most of it has been said – finished this during a pint last night. Question marks next to CANTONAL, which I got from wordplay and SHORT HEAD which I got from definition. I’m in the hot seat tonight, will it be a stinker?
  31. Damn! After a truly exhausting day (following a poor night’s sleep), I’d have done better to have left crossword-solving until tomorrow; but I didn’t, and so made my second daily cryptic mistake of the year with the completely unforced GET THE MESSAGE.
  32. No idea of time on this one, but reasonable. I was held up by lack of knowledge of Czech musicians (a shortcoming that had never come to light until now) – MARTINU fills a much needed gap in my GK. I also wasted time by having “ameliorating” at 18ac.

    My commiserations to Tony on his second mistake of the year. I have yet to make my first, although my Crossword Accounting Year starts on the last Wednesday of July so it’s early days yet. Still, a promising start.

  33. Finished early but forgot to post – 27 minutes of ‘vanilla’

    LOI 2dn CANTONAL COD 4dn MARNE WOD 7dn DUENNA

    horryd Shanghai

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