Times 26623 – William Bradford needed one!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 32 minutes

Music: Bach, Cello Suite #3, Harnoncourt

At first I thought this was going to be easy, as my first few answers were write-ins. Then I got stuck for a while, and it started to look like trouble. Another burst brought me nearly to the finish, only to again run into a wall. The last few answers were biffed, and I really couldn’t see how the cryptics worked unless you used very loose or obscure meanings of the constructing words. In the end, I had to type in my paper copy just to make sure that I had indeed solved the puzzle correctly.

I was hoping to get going quicker at the end of a long day, not helped when I decided to watch the end of the golf tournament while eating dinner instead of starting the puzzle immediately. At least there was no playoff – far from it, indeed.

So I will now attempt the blog, and see if I can untangle the parsing of the clues that got solved through instinct and feel.

Across
1 SOMETIME, sounds like SUM + TIME, where ‘porridge’ is criminal slang for a prison sentence. My FOI, all good so far.
5 ENTRAP, E,N + PART backwards.
9 OURSELVES, anagram of USE LOVERS.
11 VICAR, VIC + A R. Head of a church, not the church.
12 CHEVRON, CHEVR[e], ON[e], where ‘left unfinished applies to both components.
13 MELANGE, anagram of GLEEMAN.
14 COMPACT CAMERA, COMPACT (as a verb) + CAME + RA.
16 THIMBLERIGGER, anagram of BEER GIRL MIGHT.
20 FREESIA, FREE + S(I)A, where ‘had’ is part of the construction instructions rather than an indicator for I’D, a subtlety that held me up for a long time.
21 GROWN-UP, G[i]R[l] + OWN UP.
23 OLIVE, O + LIVE, where the terminals are live, neutral, and ground.
24 EASY GOING, a reverse cryptic, where ‘EASY GOING’ turns UNEASY into UN. One I just biffed, of course.
25 DANGLE, [fan]DANGLE. I could only vaguely recall ‘fandangle’, which see, but that had to be it.
26 APPARENT, APP + A RENT.
 
Down
1 SCONCE, SCON(C)E.
2 MERGE, MER([workin]G)E.
3 THEOREM, anagram of THE[m] + MORE. A bit &litish, as a theorem is not the proof, but what is proven.
4 MOVING AVERAGE, MO + VIN GAVE RAGE, another one I just biffed.
6 NOVELLA, NO + V + ELLA.
7 RACONTEUR, RA(CON)T + EUR. Another biff.
8 PARMESAN, P(ARM[i]ES)AN, where I had to use the cryptic to check the spelling.
10 SOMETHING IS UP, SOMETHING I SUP.
14 CRITERION, C + anagram of INTERIOR. I spent the longest time looking for a banner or flag of some kind.
15 STAFFORD, STAFF + O + RD.
17 BOSWELL, BO[ok] + SWELL. I was thinking ‘excellent’ = ‘well’, and couldn’t parse the cryptic, but it is actually quite simple if you take a slangier approach.
18 GEORGIA, GEORG[e] + I + A.
19 SPIGOT, SPI(GO)T, a very tough cryptic to see, and I certainly didn’t see it.
22 NOISE, [l]ESION upside-down.

64 comments on “Times 26623 – William Bradford needed one!”

  1. COMPACT could be a noun: as in “treaty”, “accord”, “contract” … ?

    Edited at 2017-01-16 05:25 am (UTC)

  2. Having previously seen a comment in the QC blog recommending this puzzle to newbies wishing to make the transition, I was mighty glad to read that you struggled a bit with it, v1, because I certainly did. Having said that, I note you completed it in 32 minutes which is only 2 minutes over my target time, whereas I took nearly three times that so we’re not really in the same boat after all.

    Here are the ones that gave me grief:

    12ac – whilst I’m aware that CHEVRE means goat I had no idea that it could be used on its own as a type of cheese. Anyway I’d avoid it like the plague because goat’s cheese always tastes rancid to me so that I don’t whether it’s off or meant to taste like that.

    14ac – in all my years on this planet I have never heard of a COMPACT CAMERA.

    16ac – ditto THIMBLERIGGER. It has turned up only once in a 15×15 in TftT but it was in a Championship Puzzle in 2010, published as an extra in the Times which I didn’t attempt.

    24ac – EASY in the clue = EASY in the answer = not so easy to believe, so I was looking for something not so easy.

    1dn – didn’t know SCONCE as a candlestick, nor did I when it last turned up in April 2013. It has also appeared as an earthwork or fortification and I had retained that meaning.

    4dn – didn’t know MOVING AVERAGE.

    8dn – biffed PARMESAN (what is it with cheese with this setter?) but was unable to parse as I didn’t spot the obvious “hosts/armies” device, but a PAN is NOT a bowl!

    Edited at 2017-01-16 05:55 am (UTC)

  3. Some biffing, of course: PARMESAN for one, and I’ll second Jack’s animadversion on ‘bowl’. I probably have never heard of COMPACT CAMERA either, but it seemed natural at the time. I knew THIMBLERIGGER, (although my spell-checker doesn’t), but that knowledge didn’t stop me from looking for a type of beer. DNK ‘fandangle’ or MOVING AVERAGE, but.

    Edited at 2017-01-16 07:00 am (UTC)

  4. was an unknown and held me up for a while. The top half went in trouble free including 1dn SCONCE and the recently discussed Fitzgerald NOVELLA at 6dn. FOI 12ac CHEVRON (delicious cheese!). 14ac COMPACT CAMERAs made by Minox and Olympus.
    The bottom half was a different story – which was finally broken once 15dn STAFFORD went in.
    LOI 22dn NOISE – which parseth all understanding. LESION mon arse!

    Thus 45 inglorious minutes.

    COD 16ac THIMBLERIGGER WOD from 25ac – FANDANGLE

    As for Jack’s list of woes, Mondays may never be the same again! You sound quite cheesed-off!
    Nice time Kevin – btw THIMBLERIGGER is on the Franklin.

    Edited at 2017-01-16 06:59 am (UTC)

  5. No problems here – easy puzzle quickly completed despite some of the looseness already referred to above

    THIMBLERIGGER derives from the old sleight of hand trick of putting something under one of three thimbles then moving the thimbles around before asking the mug to state which thimble the object is now under.

  6. An awkward puzzle. I had SOME THIN GIN IT for a while which made 26a difficult. As to my time, this has moved my average in the wrong direction.
  7. 9m. No problems for me today (a bit of a change from the current run of things), in spite of the funny words (THIMBLERIGGER, fanDANGLE).
    PAN and ‘bowl’ are synonymous in a lavatorial context.
  8. Found this very easy – under 10 minutes, heading for PB territory. Last one in: thimblerigger, I knew the word but not an easy anagram to find!
  9. I found this a strange mix of straightforward and awkward. I used the old HP sauce bottle last week but didn’t attribute and the chance has come to make that good. I’ve still not parsed the FREE bit of the ever-present FREESIA. I must be being dense.Never heard of a THIMBLERIGGER, but the anagram eventually yielded it up. Had forgotten CHEVRE cheese, if I ever knew it. Never heard of COMPACT CAMERA. What did William Bradford need and why, Vinyl? I remember him from a tour of a mocked up settlement near Plymouth Rock, which was really well done. A SCONCE could happen to you at Oxford if you were too boring. Never happened to me, I can’t think why. FOI THEOREM. LOI PARMESAN which was straightforward enough, With biffs and heroic assumptions, finished in 25 minutes.

    Edited at 2017-01-16 09:41 am (UTC)

  10. 13.12 achieved possibly by not worrying too much over the loose bits (proof/theorem, pan/bowl), biffing NOISE and having owned at least one compact camera. So thanks Vinyl for taking the time to crack NOISE, and Keriothe for offering his “facilities”.
    I liked the conceit at EASY GOING and the rapid reappearance of the delightful word SPIGOT.
  11. Have determined to be more relaxed about the puzzles, particularly on Mondays. 20′, LOI DANGLE, vague memory. Dnk THIMBLERIGGER, could not parse NOISE, but now makes perfect sense. Thanks vinyl and setter.
  12. 47 minutes for me, starting quickly and slowing down as others have observed. DNK THIMBLERIGGER but once I’d got all the crossers the correct arrangement sounded so beautifully Dickensian that I knew it had to be right. LOI DANGLE, having never heard of a fandangle, either.

    A compact camera is basically any small (non-SLR) camera, typically with a non-interchangeable zoom lens, aimed at the general consumer market. It’s a market sector that has been greatly impinged upon by the increasingly excellent cameras built into smartphones in recent years.

    Edited at 2017-01-16 10:24 am (UTC)

  13. …though I probably knew him once. A lot of biographers have passed under the bridge since. Otherwise on for a sub-30 time. All my problems were in the SW with the aforementioned (fan)DANGLE and THIMBLERIGGER taking an age to unpick. The rest was pretty straightforward. COMPACT CAMERA no problem – it was the photographic trade’s generic term for any 35mm fixed lens model. Ah the joys of film, waiting for your prints to come back from Boots with the little stickers on telling you what you had done wrong.
  14. 15’with several unparsed but unchecked anagrind gave me thimbleringer.Another who failed to parse noise.Thanks vinyl.
  15. 31 mins, with SCONCE unknown and FREESIA the pick of the bunch, even if I wanted it to be fuchsia, as I recently learnt how to spell it.
    1. Where does Marty McFly sit in his garden? With his back to the fuchsia.
      I’ll get my coat.

      Edited at 2017-01-16 11:07 am (UTC)

      1. Heaven forfend! And right after Sotira’s absolute shocker last week!

        Mr. Keroithe that is not worthy! Taxi for one!

        Anyone know a decent freesia joke? Where’s Penrose?

        1. What do you sing to a popular Freesia?
          “Freesia jolly good fellow”

          Edited at 2017-01-16 12:10 pm (UTC)

          1. Have to admit I’m rather enjoying Rake with Richard Roxburgh. The episode with Sam Neill and the Doberman had me howling.
          2. Methink Mr. Keriothe would be referred to as a ‘sit-down’ comedian – outside of Australia.
  16. Yet another puzzle where this QC graduate completed all but a couple. I guessed Sconce but didnt put it in as I didnt know the word. Is it bad form to guess then check? Couldnt get Dangle either although in hindsight it couldnt really be anything else. I did get Spigot although dont really get GO=FIT. can anyone clarify please?
    Thanks blogger
    Alan
    1. When people say they “biffed” an answer they mean they guessed from the definition and didn’t check

      Guessing and then parsing the cryptic is called reverse engineering and everybody does it

      If you eventually move on to bar crosswords such as Mephisto there you have no option but to derive from the wordplay and then verify in the dictionary

    2. Guess-then-check is a staple of all bar the geniuses, so give for it , I’d say. Go = fit, as in ‘the gloves don’t go with the topper, horryd.’
    3. It’s entirely up to you whether you regard it as “bad form” or not – you make your own personal rules, no ones checking up on you. So long as you enjoy doing the puzzles, that’s all that matters in the end.
      Re GO, if you try to insert something you might say “will it go?” i.e. “will it fit?”
      I’m afraid whenever I see the word SPIGOT nowadays, a one-legged Tarzan springs to mind.
      1. Very funny fellow, was Mr Cook, as well as being a great man in founding and funding Private Eye.
    4. One thing I’ve learned since getting into the 15x15s is that I quite often just have to trust the wordplay and assume that something that looks like a plausible word really is a word!

  17. 4m18, not a personal best but certainly within shouting distance of it, so I think you can add my name to the list of those who found this on the easy side. A lot of the answers could be bunged in from definition, or just from the crossers if that failed! Was nice to be tucked up in bed by quarter past midnight I must say…
    1. I just checked to see if Magoo had done his usual bit to prevent me from getting cocky about my time and sure enough – 3m45 from him, jeepers! I’m still pretty happy though.
      2. Verlaine, Magoo blogged the Championship puzzle with THIMBLERIGGER here in 2010 so he had an added advantage.
  18. I didn’t find this as easy as some here seem to have done, but I stopped the clock on 10m 46s so it could have been worse. CHEVRON and SCONCE were both stabs but seemed believable enough. 25a was LOI.
  19. Pretty standard Monday I thought, no complaints from here.

    THIMBLERIGGER was unknown, but with the checkers in place, it wasn’t a huge stretch to determine where the H, M, L, R, G and E should go.

    COD to OURSELVES. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  20. Managed OK once I got started, FOI NOVELLA, LOI THIMBLERIGGER, but that’s what it had to be….
    Roin
  21. 12:01, getting a bit stuck at the end on ENTRAP and PARMESAN.

    Moving averages and goat’s cheese are all in a day’s work for me (apart from the cheese).

  22. Fastest for a while, finishing with the unknown THIMBLERIGGER. I was glad to have paper and pen to hand today as long anagrams are awkward on the ipad!
  23. I moved through this at an average sort of speed taking 37 minutes in all. Didn’t know THIMBLERIGGER or the cheese, but they were easy enough to deduce. The only one I didn’t parse completely was EASY GOING as it just fitted like a glove and I moved on. FOI was NOVELLA and LOI DANGLE which I got after my memory was jogged by the L from BOSWELL. Enjoyable puzzle which got the old grey matter up and running following a very late arrival into the new week after a sleepless night. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  24. Steady solve, helped by SPIGOT and NOVELLA which have both appeared recently.

    Have never heard of THIMBLERIGGER but it put me in mind of the old Three Card Trick which used to separate the gullible from their hard-earned on the streets of our capital. There’s probably an app for it these days.

    Time: all correct in 45 mins.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  25. 9:06 so not too difficult, though I needed the wordplay for THIMBLERIGGER and COMPACT CAMERA (the camera part was obvious, wasn’t sure of the first word).
  26. FOI was SCONCE. Is there any other word for a candlestick? I thought this was going to be quite easy but it went a bit downhill from there. Got the first part of 4d straight away but have never heard of MOVING AVERAGE. Similarly got CAMERA straight away but COMPACT needed some crossing letters. I knew CHEVRE as a goat but not as a cheese so needed this blog to parse the easily biffed CHEVRON. Got there in the end though. 30 minutes. Ann
    1. I managed to think of “menorah” before SCONCE. I suppose “candelabra” is a bit too obvious…
  27. 35 minutes, so only 30 and a bit mins slower than V … no wonder I don’t do this at bedtime. I’d feel I wasn’t getting value for money if I paid £100 a year and it only lasted 4 minutes a day.
    Ten minutes at the end spent on untangling the THIMBLERIGGER anagram into a likely sounding word, and wondering how FREESIA and SPIGOT worked.
  28. 31 mins, but I was very tired and drifted off badly after a fastish start so I’d like to think I’d have been a lot quicker had I been alert for the entire solve. To demonstrate how bad my lack of concentration was I misread the enumeration for 14ac and without the checker from 4dn I’d convinced myself that CAMERA was the first word rather than the second even though I didn’t enter it. Muppet. Once I got the unfamiliar MOVING AVERAGE 14ac fell into place, and my last few followed with DANGLE being my LOI.
  29. Perhaps 40 minutes (interrupted by a phone call from my daughter in Cambridge, Mass.), and fairly straightforward except for THIMBLERIGGER (nothing else seemed to fit the anagram), FREESIA which has occurred before in puzzles or I wouldn’t habe known it, OLIVE which I biffed and fortunately didn’t return to later to sort out the LIVE as a terminal, and my LOI, SCONCE. This at least fit the wordplay and seemed a possible word, judging by “ensconced”, which unfortunately is based on the other meaning of SCONCE, but what the hell. My COD would be VICAR for the very fitting surface.

    Edited at 2017-01-16 06:58 pm (UTC)

  30. …took me back to the glorious Flann O’Brien:
    “Characters should be interchangeable as between one book and another. The entire corpus of existing literature should be regarded as a limbo from which discerning authors could draw their characters as required, creating only when they failed to find a suitable existing puppet. The modern novel should be largely a work of reference. Most authors spend their time saying what has been said before – usually said much better. A wealth of references to existing works would acquaint the reader instantaneously with the nature of each character, would obviate tiresome explanations and would effectively preclude mountebanks, upstarts, thimble-riggers and persons of inferior education from an understanding of contemporary literature.”
    Genius.

    1. A wealth of references to existing works would… effectively preclude mountebanks, upstarts, thimble-riggers and persons of inferior education from an understanding of contemporary literature

      That’s basically a summary of The Waste Land

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