Times 26619 – put that in and smoke it.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Maybe I was in a less than enthusiastic mood today, but I found this more of a plod than a pleasure; I hope the esteemed setter will forgive me if everyone else finds it a blast. It took around 25 minutes, starting with 10a and ending with 19a which I got from wordplay and had to check was correct before going to press with this. On a day with more zest I think I could halve that time, so I expect the usual whizzos will be in single figures.
Don’t get me wrong – there are some nice clues, a few chunky anagrams, some golfing terms, and a reappearance of HM’s canine friend – is this the third one of late?

Across
1 DEMOTE – D for daughter, EMOTE to behave theatrically, D put down.
4 TRAIPSED – Anagram of STRIDE and PA(CE); D walked.
10 CARNIVORA – CARNIVA(L) = festival finishing early, insert OR for men; D Beefeaters, perhaps.
11 CORGI – I, G, ROC, reversed; D dog.
12 MAS – Uncle SAM reversed; D mothers.
13 DELAWARE BAY – AWARE, B (knowing, bishop), inside DELAY = hold-up; D US estuary.
14 MASHIE – M.A.S.H. we all remember, i.e. = that is; D club. A mashie today would be something like a 5 iron, but it sounds much more exciting and violent.
16 REISSUE – ER = hesitation, reverse it and add ISSUE for children; D once more put out.
19 CALUMET – A LUM is a (Scottish) chimney, so smoker; insert it into CE = church, add T being last thing of priest; D pipe, name for the pipe of peace smoked by our North American natives once.
20 HUNGRY – HUNGARY loses its A; D lacking fertility. Seems the word can be applied to poor soil, but I wasn’t that keen on it, rather dull.
22 OUT OF BOUNDS – D forbidden territory, amusing-ish tired kangaroo idea.
25 PAH – D expression of disgust, sounds like your PA.
26 LARGO – L for line, ARGO the Greek ship Jason’s lot sailed; D moving slowly, as in Handel’s.
27 INSTALLER – I’S around (kitche)N, TALLER for getting higher up; D one fixing apparatus.
28 DRIFTAGE – EGAD ! would be ‘that’s surprising!’ in some circles; reverse it and insert RIFT = disagreement; D deviation.
29 STABLE – ST short for Saint, person who’s very good, ABLE for competent; D firm.

Down
1 DECAMP – EC for City (London busness disctrict post code), inside DAMP for rank air; D leave.
2 MARES TAIL – (MATERIALS)*, D plant. For once, a plant I knew.
3 TRIAD – Insert I being first person pronoun, into TRAD being jazz; D sort of chord. At first I had THIRD as I knew that was a chord, from my piano playing days, but I couldn’t derive anything jazzy from TH RD, so I hit the road again.
5 ROADWORTHINESS – (HORSE AT WINDSOR)*, D reliability on the track.
6 INCURSION – INCURS = suffers, ION can be a tiny (charged particle) bit; D attack.
7 SCRUB – Double definition.
8 DAIRYMEN – (MIND YEAR)*, D Farmers.
9 SOUL DESTROYING – (OLDSTER IS YOUNG)*, D boring. Like I said before.
15 HOME FRONT – I saw this as HOME = in, FRONT = van, D people left behind to support soldiers.
17 STRIP CLUB – S = end of hiS, TRIP = journey, CLUB = driver maybe; D seedy joint. On behalf of the ecdysiasts location fraternity, I’d like to propose that they’re not all seedy.
18 SCHOOLED – S(econd), CH(ild), (F)OOLED; D disciplined.
21 CHARGE – Double definition.
23 TORSI – IS ROT reversed, D trunks, Latin plural of torso.
24 SCANT – SCAN = examination, T = minimal time; d barely sufficient.

41 comments on “Times 26619 – put that in and smoke it.”

  1. The puzzle seemed fine to me. I needed wordplay for the unknown CALUMET, the less than familiar DRIFTAGE and HUNGRY as I didn’t know the required meaning of the word. 37 minutes.
    1. The puzzle seemed fine to me -too. I needed wordplay for the unknown CALUMET, the less than familiar DRIFTAGE and HUNGRY as I didn’t know the required meaning of the word. 37 minutes.

      COD 13ac DELAWARE BAY WOD 5dn ROADWORTHINESS

  2. As Pip notes, a bit of a plod. Slightly phased by “lacking fertility” for HUNGRY. But as the owner of a quarter-acre of the stuff, I can attest that it’s a very good word to describe crap soil.

    Stand-out clue was TRAIPSED. Great hint of &littishness in this one.

  3. Run of the mill puzzle which I found neither boring nor challenging – just more of the same. Liked LUM for smoker and the MASH reminder.
  4. Curses! Another DNF for me this week. I even thought of the word CALUMET briefly, as apparently a chain of camera shops I’ve used in the past is named after the pipe. Sadly I didn’t know that until coming here, and didn’t know “lum” either, so the opportunity passed me by. I also didn’t know MARES TAIL, and just couldn’t see the anagram, so those crossers did for me.

  5. 14m. Well I enjoyed this one. It’s all neatly put together and there is a smattering of unusual words and meanings to maintain interest.
    CALUMET is a bit unfair, I think. The word itself is very obscure and LUM, whilst common in crosswordland (sufficiently so that it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the word ‘smoker’), is pretty arcane in real life.
    Thanks for explaining HOME FRONT, Pip. I thought it was just a cryptic definition.
  6. Anagrams tricky with a SOUL DESTROYING time spent on my ROADWORTHINESS. At least got MARES TAIL quickly. Put in HUNGRY unconvinced too, and got CALUMET from cryptic without knowing what sort of pipe it was. But only 30 minutes which was good for me. The music prompted today is Handel’s LARGO followed both by Acker Bilk’s Buona Sera or Kenny Ball’s Midnight in Moscow. It was my sister’s mob 5 years older who really dug TRAD.
  7. DNF. Proving that a little k is a dangerous t, I combined knowing that Maris Piper is a potato and that some varieties of potato are grown / harvested late in the season to concoct MARIS LATE for 2d. I even congratulated myself on my brilliant solvemanship, seeing through the plant/vegetable smokescreen.

    Speaking of smoke, that of course made the already difficult CALUMET impossible so I left it blank.

    1. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who invented a Maris Late at some stage. Once I saw “Maris” it was hard to get out of my head, and was probably what stopped me getting to MARES TAIL, even though I thought it might be “somthing’s something”.
  8. I managed about half of this quickly, but unusually the half I’d completed were spread all over the grid. With all the crossers this gave me I’d have expected the second half to fall quickly but it proved not to be the case.

    I was hesitant over my LOI, CALUMET, given my erroneous PLUMBLINE to finish yesterday and that my justification for CALUMET was the same – because it fits (I wasn’t sure what one was, though I had a vague notion it was smoking related). Luckily proved right today.

  9. I felt I moved slowly through this, but it was only 21′. Just not excited, same as some others. CALUMET crossed fingers, did not parse CHARGE, DRIFTAGE a shrug, HUNGRY unknown. On the postive side liked the apperance of CARNIVORA. Thanks pip and setter.
  10. … so a happy recent graduate from the QC. Recognised CALUMET as a word but no idea what it was, so that went in last with fingers crossed, although knowing lum gave me some confidence.
    1. Did you recognise it as a word from a film: The Blues Brothers? Did they play their gig in The Palace Ballroom in Calumet City, Illinois? Google tells me it’s suburban Chicago. SW hard, also carnivora, hungry unknown meaning.
  11. I thought this was pretty good and I liked HOME FRONT, TRAIPSED and STRIP CLUB, all of which had an &lit feel. CALUMET – a mini ‘lum reekie’ of sorts – is one of those words I first came across in cryptics so it went in without too much trouble. Held up by a few such as INSTALLER so ended up taking about 40-45 minutes.

    Thanks to setter and blogger

  12. Finally managed to finish one of these since retiring last year, so exciting for me! Been a “Lurker” on this site for a while so thanks for all the help, albeit unwitting.
    Roin
  13. There was a bit of a flavour of The Crown about this with corgis, horses and Windsor. Calumet Farm is a famous stud in Kentucky which has produced a string of Derby winners – no doubt HM is familiar with it. I kept looking for Chesapeake in 13a – DELAWARE is the inlet immediately North of it – so a slight Southern US flavour too. 15.02

    I seem to be the first on the block this time so welcome to Rintoff and Roin! Nice work.

  14. No real problems with this one. I had to construct my LOI,the pipe, from wordplay but knowing that a lum was a chimney helped. Hadn’t met the requisite definition of HUNGRY before. FOI was SAM. 34 minutes saw me over the line and the SW corner was again last to fall, but at least it was all correct today. Thanks setter and Pip. Congrats and welcome to rinteff and Roin.
  15. Just over 30mins with CALUMET, as others, LOI from wp.

    Welcome to the QC graduates, always good to see new faces!

  16. Had to do on treeware due to ipad malfunction but a straightforward fill-in. I wonder whether we have a new setter here as the clues seem very wordy but if so, welcome to him or her.

  17. 15 mins. I thought some of the anagrams were pretty good, and while it wasn’t a doozy of a puzzle I certainly don’t think it was as dull as some of you did. Like a few of you I wasn’t sure of the required meaning of HUNGRY, but the answer couldn’t really have been anything else. I finished with SCHOOLED after CALUMET. I admit to toying with the idea of “Maris” as the first word of 2dn until the MARE’S TAIL penny dropped.

  19. Defying all the laws of time and space, I started this slowly and finished at a canter.

    Slightly held up by biffing MIASMA for 1d. but otherwise OK.

    CALUMET dragged up from the vault.

    As to the seediness or otherwise of strip clubs – I couldn’t possibly comment……

    Time: all correct in about 50 mins.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  20. Not too tough, wondering if there was any significance to seeing both the MAS and the PAH in the puzzle, although a bit bamboozled by the PAH expression, which I didn’t know. As a comfort to most, this American, like vinyl, had no idea of what a CALUMET is; I remembered Calumet City being a place in Illinois so I thought it meant that CALUMET is actually a word, so I put it in. Being able to solve the puzzle doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart, eh? Regards.
  21. 44m with a long time at the end on CHARGE, SCANT and INSTALLER, for reasons that are now unclear to me as they all seem obvious enough. Vexing as the long anagrams and the pipe went more or less straight in. I did pause over DRIFTAGE – it seemed an odd word and I couldn’t parse it so thanks to our esteemed blogger for explaining that. Rather than dull I found this a bit wordy but a fair enough challenge!
  22. In 18dn isn’t it the first letters of ‘second child having’ then ‘fooled’ without the f? How otherwise can one account for the ‘initially’? Can’t see why the setter bothered with ‘initially’. Isn’t ch a perfectly good abbreviation for child?
  24. Easy. Quick (for me that means 37 minutes, though). I biffed CALUMET — I believe I once actually owned one, picked up on some Indian reservation half a century ago. I never actually saw MASH, but it rang a bell nonetheless, so MASHIE was all right (and my LOI). COD to DRIFTAGE, perhaps.
  25. Re beefeaters. . . Mmm I suppose I’ll have to go with the flow on that! Alas I remember the Times crossword as being a work of unparalleled, simple and precise beauty. That was in the 90’s (gets all misty-eyed). Having only recently returned to it after a very long break, I’m finding it difficult to comprehend the use of slang, foreign words, and loose and imprecise definitions which seem to have invaded it. But I seem to be in a minority of one on all this, so I will bow out gracefully!
    1. Occasionally the Times presents us with puzzles from the archive and the thing that strikes me most about them is that they contain many loose and imprecise definitions and even looser and more imprecise wordplay. I think they tend to be from before the era you’re thinking of, but it would seem to suggest that there may not have been a Golden Age when everything was perfect.

      Edited at 2017-01-11 10:57 pm (UTC)

      1. I suspect the golden age is when you first started solving the puzzles correctly with some regularity :-).
  26. 9:11 for this pleasant, straightforward solve.

    No problem with CALUMET, which used to crop up regularly 50 years ago, typically with reference to Longfellow and Hiawatha.

    I failed to parse SCHOOLED correctly, but am sure wilransome has it right.

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