Times 26641 – A Sting in the Tell

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
A gentle start to the week, albeit with a bit of a teaser at 14 across, a potential incubus to those of our community who suffer from vocalophobia (fear of vowels). The company I used to work for is given a mention at 12 across, while one of my hobbies is referenced at 9 down. We have a couple of authors bookending the acrosses, and even a Savoyard opera for those who care for that type of thing. Me, I prefer Mr Sullivan’s painfully reconstructed Cello Concerto, Irish Symphony and incidental music to The Tempest to his tra-la-la diddy-diddy whatsit stuff, but horses for courses, so long as we all make the home stretch, what? 27’20”.

ACROSS

1. WOOLF – WOLF around O. I liked Mrs Dalloway best, but gave up after The Waves – much as she did actually.
2. PATIENCE – whimsical double definition, which requires you to put a bit of punctuation between the last two words – or not, if you’re feeling naughty.
8. INDIAN ELEPHANT – I never bothered to parse this, but I reckon it must be an anagram* of PEN ANNIHILATED. Talking of which, doesn’t the definition of a crosswrd anorak have to be someone who actually bothers to work out what letters are used to make those nine-word answers in the Guardian that run across seven ‘lights’ and contain 47 letters?
10. PORTERAGE – ‘moving loads’ is the literal; PORTER (‘beer’) + AGE (‘[to] mature’). Never heard of this, but it’s the type of thing that WS Gilbert probably worked into one of his operettas, tan tan tara, tsing boom, tsing boom!
11. CHINO – CHINO[OK]; and there was I thinking chinook was a chopper driven by Robert Duvall – or was it Shelley?
12. NESTLE – N + STEEL*.
14. MILITATE – literal ‘tell’; MATE around I + LIT (crossword word for inebriated). ‘An example’, you ask? Well, certainly: ‘His election showed that his showbiz background did not militate against his Presidential bid’.
17. PLAINTAIN – ANT in PLAIN.
18. ACCEPT – ACC + EP (‘record’ – remember them?) + T[ransactions]; I always thought ac. was sufficient for ‘account’, but I guess accountants can charge extra if they add 50% to the letterage.
20. STERN – [we]STERN; I wasted too much time trying to remove something from ‘gay flick’.
22. CINERARIA – CINE + RA + AIR reversed; I thought this was the plural of a place where you do incinerations, but apparently not.
24. FORWARD-LOOKING – ‘enterprising’; FOR + WARD (as in Richard Carstone, ward of Chancery in Bleak House) + LOOKING.
25. WRINKLED – ‘lined’; W (‘with’) RINK (‘strip of a [bowling] green’) + LED.
26. SWIFT – WIF[i] in ST.

DOWN

1. WHIPPING POST – the 15-strong gang that included Ronnie Biggs nicked two and a half mill from a Royal Mail train, so they woz, sorta like, whipping the post. Most of the gang was found, but not most of the loot.
2. ORDER – ORDER[lies].
3. FLAGEOLET – GOT ALL FEE* for the slightly kinky sounding recorder wannabe flute. That’s a whipping and now a flage – I’m a bit worried about this setter.
4. PREPAY – PREP + A + Y.
5. THEREMIN – THE + REMIN[d]; ‘an electronic musical instrument, played by moving the hands through electromagnetic fields created by two metal rods’, named after a Russian dude. Here it is strutting its stuff.
6. ETHIC – E + THIC (sounds like ‘thick’).
7. CANDIDATE – CANDID + ATE; émigré from the Quickie.
9. HOME STRAIGHT – HOME + STRAIGHT, and in sight of the winning post.
13. STAGE DOOR – SO DO GREAT* (the anagrindational role is played by ‘broadcast’).
15. INCURIOUS – INCUR + IOUS; Collins has ‘not eager to find out’, so I guess if you’re not eager to find a solution, you can be called incurious.
16. VISCERAL – ‘of the gut’; alternate letters of S[i]C[k]E[n] inside VIRAL (‘like some diseases’).
19. ANGLED – [m]ANGLED.
21. NO-WIN – NOW + IN.
23. REIKI – ‘a form of therapy in which the practitioner is paid lots of dosh to channel energy into the patient in order to encourage healing or restore wellbeing’; hidden in the Russian count/prince chappie.

40 comments on “Times 26641 – A Sting in the Tell”

  1. I was all done in 27 minutes biffing THEREMIN (which I knew of but not its name! Not in my old Chambers).

    But LOI 14ac had me on the ropes and I spent another twenty minutes agonising over it – finally plumping for MITIGATE instead of MILITATE!

    Otherwise a cheerful Monday offering.

    FOI 3dn FLAGEOLET which is also a green bean I believe.

    COD 25ac WRINKLED WOD REIKI

    PS PATIENCE ain’t an opera in my libretto – an operetta surely?

    1. I’m sure somewhere or other there’s a source that would agree with your point but most maintain (correctly in my view) that the form famously used by G&S was “comic opera” and I understand this was used intentionally in order to distinguish it from operetta. But whatever the rights and wrongs of all that, the 13 works by G&S are widely known collectively as “The Savoy Operas” (written for Richard D’Oyly Carte who had built the Savoy theatre for them to be performed in) and I think that alone justifies the definition in the clue.
      1. I thought only ‘Thespis’ was their only true opera – but I am happy with your answer to my question.
  2. 10:25, with a chunk of that agonizing over MILITATE which I thought had a different meaning, but it was the only thing that fit the wordplay. Quite a few subtraction clues today.
  3. … LOI was 14ac. But, having the militate/mitigate difference on my list of “Mct’s Handy Writing Hints” (yeh, I actually use it in teaching), I wasn’t going there. Though I did muse over LITIGATE for a moment or two.

    Ulaca: there seems to be no 8dn, so we shall remain ignorant of your hobby. If it was supposed to be 8ac, it looks like the capybara’s been demoted?

    And: “Most of the gang was found, but not most of the loot …”. In fact, they still haven’t found the train!

  4. 32 minutes. It was all going very well and I might have been heading for 20 minutes but for problems at the end with 14ac, 25ac and 22ac.

    Actually my difficulty with 22ac was a wrong checker supplied by 23dn, a word I knew I didn’t know, had guessed it was hidden and had plumped for “ikiri”. Eventually I worked out CINERARIA from wordplay and revised 23dn to REIKI.

    I also thought of “mitigate”at 14ac but was not satisfied that “tig” could mean “drunk” so I persevered and remembered “lit” which has come up before and was new to me as I had only heard of “lit up” prior to that. There’s a WWII song called “I’m going to get lit up when the lights go on in London”.

    I had no problem with WRINKLED rather than “crinkled” at 25ac as I’d spotted “with” = W, but the concept of a strip of green turf being called a RINK was new to me. I only associate the word with ice.

    As for THEREMIN, I prefer this example to the one in the blog. It’ll be familiar to all those who watch “Midsomer Murders”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTZK9FNgK74

    Edited at 2017-02-06 05:57 am (UTC)

  5. … and I was briefly so sure that a flagellot was a thing that I didn’t bother checking the anagram fodder.
  6. And thank you to Jonathan — vinyl1 — for stepping into the breach to take up duties as the new custodian of TfTT now that Andy — linxit — has decided to hang up his supervisory and blogging boots. Cheers, both.
  7. Easy start to the week after an easy Sunday Times. I feel a storm approaching. Only paused over MILITATE having DIGITATE in my mind.
  8. If I have a par time, this was right on it at 16.49. I left WRINKLED to the last, because the clue looked like gibberish. An alphabet run suggested that there were more fits than a decent set of crossers should possess, and I decided that brindled and crinkled were marginally less likely than the w version. I failed entirely to unravel “strip of a green”.
    I thought I remembered a song about a THEREMIN by Bill Oddie, but it turned out to be a terrapin. It also turns out that the Messiaen piece for theremin I remembered played by the CBSO was actually for Ondes Martinot, though at least Wiki says they sound very similar. I think I would have spelled it with an A if the wordplay wasn’t so insistent.
  9. 19:16. I sped through most of this, but then if there is such a thing as a wavelength I lost it completely with about half a dozen unsolved. The unknown THEREMIN and CINERARIA caused me a lot of trouble, but I wasted nearly five minutes on my last in, 25ac. Eventually I just bunged it in from the definition, something I’d have done much sooner if I had spotted the old with=W trick earlier.
    Still, at least I finished, and with no stupid mistakes.
  10. 31m all correct, steady and plodding solve. Trusted the wordplay for the unknown instrument, though thanks to Jack’s link, I now know I’d heard it all too often via MSM. Thanks to setter and blogger today for the entertainment.
  11. Sped through this confidently, worked out MILITATE from the other possibilities,knew the plant and the weird instrument, 24 minutes, then came here to find I had gone wrong: never heard of RINK being part of a bowling green and plumped for BRINDLED being lined as in a dog with stripey fur. Note to self, if you can’t parse it, it’s probably wrong.
    Well volunteered vinyl1, and the new Saturday team.
    1. BRINDLED was my best guess for a while, and I had the same problem with RINK, but the W led me to the right answer in the end – just.
  12. 23′, but with CRINKLED. COD MILITATE, although it only goes with ‘against’ doesn’t it? DNK THEREMIN. Thanks ulaca and setter.
  13. I found this very straightforward. Knew all the obscurities and had no problem with definitions or wordplay.
  14. Like pip and rob, I played with CRINKLED AND BRINDLED before plumping for WRINKLED. DNK the bowling connection.
    Ang Lee, the director of Brokeback Mountain used to get worked up when he heard his film described as being about two gay cowboys. “It is not’ he said. ‘It is about two gay shepherds”.
    Just over the 20 minutes so thanks s and b.

    Edited at 2017-02-06 11:10 am (UTC)

  15. Lumbered along in 27 minutes. Say what you like about tum tara, G and S do a magnificent line in unvindictive satire, words and music as one. Really came here to mention Sat.’s excellent offering – highly recommended. – joekobi
  16. As well as old dog, my wife’s not well today, so have just been told by both of then that I’m going to Tesco for emergency supplies. So it’s a DNF after 40 minutes with MILITATE penned in faintly and THEREMIN not there at all. I pondered if there was an instrument called a TREMELOE, known only to Brian Poole. The rest was fine. I’ve always liked the look. of CINERARIAS but not been that lucky with them. We still had COD WHIPPING POST along with the Stocks in the Square at Poulton-le-Fylde, where I spent my early years. I think they hadn’t been used for more than a century then. Who says the Victorians were strict? Tesco ergo sum, my existence for the next hour confirmed.
  17. Hmmm…never really gave much thought to CONTRARIA. Probs should have.

    Pretty typical Monday otherwise, LOI WRINKLE despite knowing the bowling reference.

    Like Sotira, I was thinking FLAGELLOT, but took the time to check the anagrist, so dodged a bullet there.

    I’ll be in Japan for the next two weeks, so I’m not sure how I’ll go with solving. I don’t know many Japanese words.

    Nice blog U. Thanks setter.

  18. Very happy with under 6 minutes for this one – a perfect storm I think of none of the vocabulary being outside of my personal comfort zone, though a bowling RINK did give me a moment’s pause. CHINO was actually my LOI for no readily apparent reason.

    ETA: I see Magoo came in under 5 minutes, of course! What a solver.

    Edited at 2017-02-06 12:32 pm (UTC)

  19. A gentle start to the week, keeping me busy for 28 minutes, with FOI ETHIC and LOI WRINKLED. I was toying with BRINDLED for 25a for a while until I saw W for with. I was vaguely aware of the bowling green connection. MILITATE held me up for a while, as did REIKI, as I saw the 2 possibilities of the hidden, and needed to construct the vaguely remembered CINERARIA before deciding. Liked VISCERAL. Didn’t know the weird instrument, but the wordplay was very helpful. Thanks setter and U.
  20. Unlike others I found this a struggle today, with 14a, 22a and 25a taking a particularly long time to drop in. For the second time in a week my lack of bowling knowledge is holding me back, and – like most plants that feature – I don’t recall having come across CINERARIA before. All done in 13m 54s.
  21. 23 mins. I’m off work this week and my time would almost certainly have been considerably quicker had I “rested my eyes” for half an hour on the couch before I attempted it. Instead I started it straight after lunch and I drifted very badly in the middle of it. Anyway, enough of the bleating. Even allowing for my tiredness I’m with mauefw and keriothe in not finding it as straightforward as some of you did. The THEREMIN/MILITATE crossers took some time, and I finished with WRINKLED after the CINERARIA/VISCERAL crossers. This isn’t the first time that it took me ages to connect “with” and “w”, and if I ever knew that a strip of a bowling green is called a rink I’d forgotten it.

  22. All bar the plant done in 40 minutes – managed to hack out a plant-like sounding thingy from the parsing and, mirabile dictu, it was right!

    I shall add CINERARIA to my ever-expanding, though otherwise useless, collection of plant names.

    Time: all correct in 45mins.

    Thank you to setter and especial thanks to esteemed blogger.

  23. As someone who is attempting to progress from Quickie to 15×15, I was pleased to get this done in an hour or so, albeit with a little help from solvers and a wrong guess for militate. I’m getting there…..
    1. Hang in there pearlygait. It really does get a bit easier over time but congratulations on so far.

      Edited at 2017-02-06 06:24 pm (UTC)

  24. Pleased to record what must be a personal best of 23 minutes. Knew FLAGEOLET from another G&S oper(ett)a – Iolanthe.
  25. This took a while at the same time I was watching the US football game, so I don’t have a time to post. But I thought it middle of the road. I DNK the instrument, the plant, or the green strip at a bowling place, but they were all deduced from wordplay after the checkers went in. My great thanks to linxit – Andy – for persevering this long, and for his blogging. And thanks to vinyl for stepping into the breach. Best regards to both, and to everyone else as well.
  26. Very pleased to come up with an all-correct solution in about 40 mins. However I can scarcely believe that so many folk are claiming not to have heard of the Theremin instrument. Does no one remember the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson’s thrilling use of the Theremin (strictly speaking, an Electro-Theremin) on the celebrated Good Vibrations and various other tracks on his classic Pet Sounds album? Gosh, I must be getting old ….

    Edited at 2017-02-06 08:51 pm (UTC)

    1. While the theremin is played by moving your hands in proximity to two antennas, which, to put it simply, translate the motions into changes in, respectively, pitch and volume, with the electro-theremin a sine tone’s frequency is controlled with a slide (which turns a knob), while another knob controls the volume.

      Edited at 2017-02-06 09:26 pm (UTC)

  27. 7:17 for this interesting and enjoyable start to the week.

    I didn’t know the required meaning of RINK, but it seemed plausible as some sort of sporting reference.

    For once I wasn’t too stricken by vocalophobia at 14ac since MILITATE came to mind quite quickly, with only a brief dither before I was convinced.

  28. I came to this one tired and even more grumpy than usual at the end of a trying and engrumpening day. I gave up with 25ac and 14ac still blank after 26 minutes, and bunged in MILITATE and WRINKLED to get it over and done with. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that both were right. I was happy with the parsing of MILITATE but not with its meaning (which I have, apparently since birth, misunderstood). As for WRINKLED, I was doubtful that a “rink” had anything to do with strips, and seemed to have a “green” left over. I was also sure that if I plumped for WRINKLED, it was bound to be “crinkled” and vice versa.

    I still think that “crinkled” would be an equally valid answer, “c.” being a common abbreviation for “cum” (with), at least where I come from.

    Anyway, all’s well that ends well and I can now resume grumping.

    Edited at 2017-02-07 12:33 am (UTC)

  29. 10:12 Belated but very speedy, for me, solve on a Tuesday evening while cooking for the family. I’ve been quicker than this only a couple of times, so I must have been on the wavelength. So not only was the dinner not burnt, but I had time to set the table without assistance and have a celebratory glass of wine. No problem with THEREMIN, which reninded me of the related Ondes Martenot, and that I never got back my recording of Messian’s amazing Turangulila Symphony, lent to a friend in 1980.
  30. I was surprised to see IOUs as debts. A earlier crossword editor, I think it was Brian Greer, wrote that that is the sort of sloppiness you find in the daily another newspaper. An IOU is not a debt. It is a promise to repay.

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