Times 26547 – a melange

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I found this a strange puzzle, because it offered a mixture of dead-easy quickie-type clues and much trickier ones which would have been hard to see without the checkers from the write-ins. With 1a and 1d going in immediately, followed by the next long one at 10d, I thought it was going to be a Monday-type stroll, but there were some more chewy items in store. Just over half an hour saw it done, with 2d my LOI from wordplay as the definition doesn’t seem to match the answer very well.

Across
1 SAMOSAS – SAMOS is the island, AS = for instance; D snacks. I’ve been on a few dozen Greek islands but not yet to Samos, birthplace of Pythagoras amongst other notables.
5 HARASS – HAR(T) = deer no end, ASS follows as the animal; D hound.
8 AIRSTREAM – AIRS = broadcasts, RE = about, AM = American, insert T (president finally); D current.
9 PIN-UP – PI = very good, holy, PUN = gag, reverse it NUP; D a beauty?
11 IVIED – I VIED = I struggled, D overcome by climber. A QC chestnut.
12 PARTIALLY – If I ALLY with a PART, I could be biased; D not entirely.
13 HARD CASH – HARD = firm, CA = not exactly, circa, SH = quiet; D money.
15 WANTON – If you WANT ON you keep desiring, D woman of easy virtue.
17 UPLAND – Hidden word in YO(U PLAN D)RASTICALLY; D rise.
19 MANDATED – a MAN DATED would be a fellow on a night out; D instructed.
22 TERRIFIED – TERRIE(R) is the tailless canine; insert I F(orce) and add D (dog’s lead) to the end; D trembling?
23 CONES – Alternate letters of C o O k N e E d S; D ice-cream containers.
24 REEVE – VEER = turn, ‘about’ means reverse it, add E end of case; D former official.
25 PHONE CALL – Anagram of LONEL CHAP, removing the Y being ‘no yen’; D communication.
26 XYSTER – X and Y are axes on a graph, STER(N) = mostly flinty; D tool for scraping (bones usually). I did somehow know this word, maybe from a previous puzzle or reading too many forensic pathology thrillers.
27 FALSELY – ‘London school’ in a crossword should make you go first to the LSE; Insert A LSE into FLY = cunning, D deceptively.

Down
1 SPANISH GUITAR – An elegant clue, if an easy anagram; (HARPIST USING A)*, D instrument.
2 MARDIER – RE I DRAM would be ‘concerned with a single tot’; reverse all; D rather spoilt. I knew MARD or MARDY means a bit soft, a Mummy’s boy perhaps, but I can’t see why it’s ‘rather spoilt’ as opposed to the comparative ‘more spoilt’? Discuss.
3 SITED – SUITED would be wearing formal attire, remove the U; D given position.
4 SHEEPISH – SHE = female, HE male, about = EH, insert PIS = SIP, drink, up; D shamefaced.
5 HOMBRE – Insert BR into HOME; D guy.
6 REPRIMAND – REP is a ccoarse material, RID = delivered, as in saved from, removed; insert MAN = piece; D carpet, tell off.
7 SINGLET – G o L d oddly = GL, after IN, inside SET = collection; D garment.
10 PAY AND DISPLAY – Well, you lay out cash, then you lay out your ticket; D car park.
14 CONFIDENT – CONFIT is a French ‘course’ well, a dish; insert DEN for study; D certain.
16 HANDS OFF – HANDS = presents, passes over; OF F = belonging to female; D don’t touch.
18 LARGELY – (ALLERGY)*, D to a great extent.
20 TINWARE – (I WANT)*, anagrind ‘kinks’, on = RE, D metal objects.
21 TIPPER – Tourist is TRIPPER, lose a R(upee); D he’s happy with the service?
23 CREEL – C = caught, REEL = angler’s equipment; container for fish.

68 comments on “Times 26547 – a melange”

  1. Finished in 25 minutes, with last one in XYSTER. I must remember that London school is usually the LSE, with FALSELY penultimate in. At a conference in Madrid, I was looking forward to the Flamenco and SPANISH GUITAR. It went on a bit!
  2. Easy one today with no hold-ups or queries. If you haven’t met XYSTER before it’s worth remembering
  3. So there was I thinking that this Quickie was more difficult than usual but nevertheless fair progress was being made when I realised in my early morning stupor that in fact I was doing the 15×15 instead. After which I somehow seemed to slow down a bit. I’m sure this only goes to show something, but I’m not sure what.
    So all done and dusted within 30 minutes.
    I’d never heard of MARDIER, but Mrs Deezzaa, who knows about these things, put me right, though I agree with Pip’s comment about the strange use of the comparative. Other than that, a pretty decent puzzle.
      1. ‘fraid not – but then I’ve led a very sheltered life. My knowledge of popular music stops in about 1972
            1. We had a party for my parent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary recently and we put together a list consisting exclusively of hits from that year. The sheer number of great pop songs we had to choose from was quite astonishing. The Beatles’ output alone would be considered a pretty solid career achievement for most pop artists.

              Edited at 2016-10-19 03:02 pm (UTC)

  4. too many unparsed answers making my visit to these shores rather necessary. never come across XY for axes – obvious though it is. I had my SPANISH GUITAR right in front of me and still took a while to collect the letters up. 42 mins with a bit of cheating in the NW so really a DNF.
  5. 11:17 … with fingers crossed over MARDIER because I thought mardy meant grumpy. This use of ‘rather’ leading to a comparitive has cropped up before, I’m sure. I can only think the rationale is that if you’re rather mardy then you’re mardier than average, but it never feels quite right to me, either, Pip.

    Fond memories of Samos, where I spent a couple of Greek easters. Apart from the Pythagoras connection, worth a visit for the tunnel of Eupalinos, a 1km tunnel excavated from both ends (and meeting in the middle!) something like 500BC, so presumably without wifi or Google Earth.

    Edited at 2016-10-19 09:10 am (UTC)

  6. 19:27 knowing XYSTER as I am sure that it has come up before. Not sure about the PART
    I ALLY parsing though; if a Judge is partial, he/she is showing bias so how do you show bias? PARTIALLY. Anyway, thanks for the blog, Pip.
  8. I see Pip has a new bird.

    Bang on 30 mins – my best time for a while.

    FOI 12ac PARTIALLY LOI and WOD XYSTER which rang a bell and OYSTER didn’t parse muster.

    COD 11ac IVIED

    2dn MARDIER was used by my Yorkshire grandmother, well MARDY at least – the comparative must be of somewhat rare usage.

    I prefer Meldrewier.

  9. I remember mardy from my Sheffield childhood .. at which time it meant a crybaby, a wet… “He’s a bit of a mardy, isn’t he?” .. never heard “mardier” though. Also knew xyster, probably from other crosswords. Like oxter.

    This crossword must have been easy .. finished in one sitting under 29 mins .. but somehow it didn’t *feel* easy. 1dn a really elegant clue; 1ac not a write-in for me, not a regular samosa eater and never been to Samos

  10. A term hardly used today. But it used to be a term for guitars that were not pedal-steel or lap-steel. So … the Fender Esquire, Broadcaster and Telecaster were first marketed as “electric Spanish” guitars. (I have the adverts!) Natch: “acoustic guitar” is a retronym and not the same as “Spanish guitar”.
  11. I wonder if anyone else regally bunged in regally for 18, appreciating the twist on “great”, and as a result found the SW mardier to say the least. Regarding which word I wonder if the comparative’s ever used. But “rather” as an indicator for such is (rightly or wrongly) well-established Times usage. 41.20, about half on SW at end.
  12. 11:11 so no hold-ups really. Oop ‘ere in Yorkshire mardy is more akin to grumpy than soft / spoilt.
    1. That must be where I got it from. I bravely attended university oop north, making me the first member of my family to travel north of Cheltenham.
    2. In Lancashire, it was also used to mean moody/ grumpy but wasn’t a common word. We’re too cheerful. I’ve heard it from a Nottingham friend too, and I’m happy to give it to the dry side of the Pennines.

      Edited at 2016-10-19 09:34 am (UTC)

      1. To be honest it’s more in use in South Yorkshire where they must be grumpier than the rest of us. Mrs Penfold is from Leicester and her family use it a lot (usually when talking about me).
        1. I’m from down south like Jimbo but Mrs K who hails from Bolton and lived in Harrogate, Yorks, before moving to warmer climes, tells me mardy means soft, not grumpy.
  13. I did this post-pub, not having eaten that evening (apart from liquid sustenance) and it proved a mistake, taking me over the quarter for little obvious reason. No late nights and no booze between now and Saturday methinks!

    Like others I was wrongfooted by MARDY, which I always assumed meant something like surly, so I fell into a bad assumption that the answer must begin MUS-. In a similar vein I became fixated on the study in 14dn being CON and was unable to parse for ages even when the answer seemed overwhelmingly likely. Oh, that demon drink…

  14. I also have a Spanish/Classical guitar sitting across the room from me, next to what could be Jack and Ulacas’ Tardis, but it still took me a while to spot the anagram. 40 minutes altogether with MARDIER and XYSTER NHO and constructed from wordplay. CONFIDENT was totally biffed as I was working with CON for study instead of DEN and missed the CONFIT bit altogether. Thanks to Pip for straightening me out. An enjoyable puzzle. Now off to meet some fellow retirees for a convivial lunch in the the North Yorkshire countryside. To wit The Malt Shovel in Hovingham.

    Edited at 2016-10-19 02:45 pm (UTC)

    1. Well, Z is an axis too. Sadly I hadn’t got past thinking of the plural of “axe” before my time ran out, so a DNF on the unknown XYSTER for me. Pity I didn’t scrape through…
      1. Thanks Matt, but no excuse. I’ve seen this device before and was on to it fairly quickly.

        Something just went wrong between brain and fingertips.

        1. I’ve known the word since childhood, I think from a misspent youth looking for interesting words in the dictionary (I reckon I’m safe admitting that here). So I confidently put in ZYSTER.
  16. I had 12 across showing bias being partial, and showing it thus being partially.

    I thought both the surface and anagram fodder for 1 down was excellent.

    Gandolf 34

  17. “Sterilised rubber axes and short cross” 26107 19 May 2015. The wording may be different but the parsing is the same: XY, STER(n). “Tool for scraping” today is much more straightforward as a definition than “sterilised rubber”.

    I didn’t know the word last time or this, but I remembered the “axes” trick and dredged up the remaining two unches from somewhere to make what seemed a reasonable guess at my LOI.

    40 minutes, with the RH much easier than the LH.

    Edited at 2016-10-19 09:27 am (UTC)

  18. 11m. Like pip, I found this a curious mix of the very easy (and biffable) and the decidedly harder.
    XYSTER has appeared before (puzzle 26,102, 19 May 2015) and with a similar clue: I failed to see ‘axes’=XY then, which probably helped me this time.
    This clue for CREEL is a chestnut that stumped me the first, oh I don’t know, five times I saw it.
  19. 25 min – 26ac went in at once from axes=XY at start of word. 2dn almost last, as definition was doubtful.
  20. After a nightmare yesterday, it was much better for me today – all done in 8m 40s with fingers crossed for XYSTER, and SINGLET where I hadn’t parsed anything except the GL. “Made of” = “in” is entirely fair but I don’t recall seeing it before.
  21. Had I been able to throw in the NW corner on sight, I would have reduced my 17 minutes by at least 5, but I abandoned that particular struggle and went to the rest of the grid. That flowed quickly enough, though it seems CONFIDENT went in unparsed (word for “certain”, starts CON… what do you mean there was more to the clue?)
    The slightly offbeat vocab (XYSTER, CREEL, REEVE, MARDIER and perhaps even IVIED, and WANTON as a noun) made it seem harder than it was. Mardy is one of those words which collect different meanings over the years, and indeed by travelling a few miles. As a comparative, its natural home is surely Countdown. Susie?
        1. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen mardier and mardiest on Countdown. Nice letter combinations.
  22. Oh, and is PAY AND DISPLAY in common usage in the further flung reaches of this community? Just curious.
    1. That’s a yes from this outpost. As is PARK ‘N’ RIDE, and also KISS ‘N’ RIDE (not as dodgy as it sounds).
  24. Interesting to see how MARDIER means different things in different parts of the U.K. Over here it means nothing whatsoever, so I tried MURKIER as my LOI. Oh well. Regards.
  25. 38 minutes, finishing with the two I’d never heard of, 2 and 26. I’m in that state of awe that used to visit me frequently on my first visits to this blog seven years ago, when absolutely everyone bar me knew a word that I was totally clueless about.

    Edited at 2016-10-19 11:53 am (UTC)

    1. I know this won’t help much, but me too. In fact I was berating myself for entering such an obviously wrong solution in my desperation to get under twenty minutes.
        1. You are so right! If Galspray had been on the Remain side, I wouldn’t have voted to leave the Soviet Union.
          1. It would have ultimately served no purpose: horryd would have installed him as Dictator for Life.
    2. I had a very vague idea that ‘mardy’ might be a word (unlike my spellchecker) but I very much needed the wordplay. I had absolutely no idea what it meant, which might have been an advantage.
  27. 13 mins so back to some kind of form after a couple of off days. I’d have joined those on 11 mins if I hadn’t spent a couple of minutes trying to think of a wordplay alternative to MARDIER. I toyed with “murkier” for a little while but decided that there was no way I could justify tot=krum, and dram certainly fitted the wordplay. I also got held up in the SW with XYSTER, UPLAND, LARGELY and CONFIDENT, the latter of which I didn’t parse until after I’d finished.
  28. XYSTER rang a bell, but when I hit submit it was MARDIER that was giving me the most concern, having gotten it from wordplay. Apart from those two there wasn’t too much difficult here.
  29. Oh good, I wasn’t completely off base in what I thought it meant, after all, then!

    I bet that Penfold looks good on the dancefloor.

  30. The first couple of verses just for the record. Although it’s comfortably post-1972 I think it’s a cracking song.

    Now then Mardy Bum
    I see your frown
    And it’s like looking down the barrel of a gun
    And it goes off
    And out come all these words
    Oh there’s a very pleasant side to you
    A side I much prefer

    It’s one that laughs and jokes around
    Remember cuddles in the kitchen yeah
    To get things off the ground
    And it was up, up and away
    Oh, but it’s right hard to remember that
    On a day like today when you’re all argumentative
    And you’ve got the face on

  31. Ah so the Arctic Monkeys are your bag.
    I see in Collins MARDY has two distinct meanings 1. spoilt (as a child) 2. sulky, irritable.
  32. Thirty-two minutes, which is about my average (as long as one ignores all the ones that take me significantly longer than that). I seem to have plateaued, time-wise, and will never join the ranks of those who regularly achieve sub-quarter-hour times.

    XYSTER was no problem but MARDIER was a definite NHO which I would never have got without all the checkers and the wordplay. I gave up trying to parse the Ikea clue at 6d, but apart from that things went remarkably smoothly.

    1. I suggest aim for 20 minutes. Quick enough so that you don’t feel your day has been too interfered with. Long enough so that you can enjoy the intricacies of probably the best cryptic crossword in the world. I have nothing but contempt for those who dash it off in double quick time. Well, and unbridled envy, of course.. but I do think they are missing something
  34. But I do aim for 20 minutes… it’s just that I almost invariably fail. But I agree about taking time to enjoy the puzzle – I always feel that I’ve got three times more value* out of mine than some of these speed-demons.

    (*or at least whoever I’ve stolen my copy from that day has had three times the value, by proxy)

      1. Scritti Politti still exist? Wow. I still have a vinyl copy of Cupid & Psyche somewhere. The Word Girl used to be the song every hi-fi store played to show off their £10,000 speakers.
  36. 10:16 – probably about as good as I can hope for nowadays for a reasonably straightforward puzzle like this one with no unknowns.

    The question is whether verlaine will show a dramatic improvement when he lays off the booze, or whether he’ll suffer from withdrawal systems? 😉

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