Times 26,735: Careful What You Wish For

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I’m always saying that I think the Friday puzzle should stop pulling its punches and be a proper end-of-week challenge, but either my best solving days are already behind me or this was a bloody tough one! Having just been congratulating myself on topping the Concise leaderboard and finishing Broteas’ last and typically intransigent TLS puzzle in under 20 minutes, the best that can be said for me on this one was that I finished it without errors: half the entries on the Club so far weren’t so lucky. But by the time I clicked that submit button a sub-20-minute time was long ago a distant dream.

The grid is of course unusual and unfriendly with lots of double unches. Double unches combine really badly with poor hunches and I had, for a while, both FREE BELT at 3dn and TEXT BOOK at 7dn, neither of which did me any favours. (At least WHAT A NERVE was fairly quickly ruled out at 13dn.) In addition there are two clues at 19dn and 20dn that I’m still having trouble confidently parsing. Bit of a multi-clue pile-up, all told, and just to compound my utter despair at my solving abilities today’s Telegraph Toughie turns out to be the regularly scheduled intellectual humiliation at the hands of Elgar so the agony won’t be over for a few more hours yet.

On the plus side, though some of the clues were rather mystifying, there are definitely some doozies in there too. I really liked the ruthless economy of 6dn and how it sent me down a blind alley of searching for an anagram of (EARLIER SET*). But my clue of the day has to be 13dn, not parsed till long after – maybe I just like clues where the definition part is an almost invisible tiny word, but I thought this was very neat and smooth-surfaced indeed. My most masochistic thanks to the setter!

I’m off to Spain (well, Barcelona, at least one proper Spaniard has already told me rather heatedly that that doesn’t count) next week so I believe you will be getting a double dose of lovely pipkirby blogging. But you might all want to go on holiday for a week yourselves after that to avoid the resultant double dose of me. See you all in June!

1 I’ll tell you a secret: politician has got fired for corruption (8)
CONFIDER – CON [politician] has got (FIRED*) [“for corruption”]

9 Carriage, outwardly exquisite, with funny silver interior (8)
EQUIPAGE – E{xquisit}E, with QUIP AG [funny | silver] “interior”

10 Writer describes a king of Spanish region (8)
BALEARIC – BIC [writer] “describes” A LEAR [a | king]

11 Choke, a device that controls mixture of air and fuel (8)
THROTTLE – double def

12 Potentially embarrassing situation for woman working in Civil Service (3,2,5)
CAN OF WORMS – (FOR WOMAN*) [“working”] in CS [Civil Service]

14 Healthy exercises featuring regularly in my long day (4)
YOGA – “regularly” in {m}Y {l}O{n}G {d}A{y}

15 Creature kept scratching head in anger (7)
REPTILE – {k}EPT in RILE [anger]

17 In the flesh, RAF serviceman is a beast (7)
MEERKAT – ERK [RAF serviceman] in MEAT [the flesh]

21 Kilometre behind house, round bend (4)
HOOK – K [kilometre] behind HO O [house | round]

22 One Christmas filled with constant bustle? The complete opposite (10)
INACTIVITY – I NATIVITY [one | Christmas] “filled with” C [constant]

23 Workers’ food studied by the BBC (8)
BEEBREAD – READ [studied] by BEEB [the BBC]

25 Charges are to be reduced, rules stated (8)
ARRAIGNS – AR{e} + homophone of REIGNS [rules “stated”]

26 Casualty department in hospital needing help at first to nurse about a hundred (8)
ACCIDENT – ENT [department in hospital] needing AID [help] at first, “to nurse” C C [about | a hundred]

27 Crackers served with ends of Edam cheese (8)
EMMENTAL – MENTAL [crackers], “served with” E{da}M

Down
2 Love to sleep on, perhaps, needing to make little effort (2,1,5)
ON A PLATE – O [love] + NAP LATE [sleep on, perhaps]

3 Complimentary drink in trade zone (4,4)
FREE PORT – double def

4 Brave, turning up the radio a bit (4)
DARE – hidden reversed in {th}E RAD{io}

5 Cleric’s place with play area near to railway (7)
RECTORY – REC [play area] near TO RY [to | railway]

6 On track, having earlier set off (10)
PUTRESCENT – RE SCENT [on | track], having earlier PUT [set]

7 Publication having page with illustrations (4,4)
PART WORK – P [page] with ARTWORK [illustrations]

8 One’s back in French tavern, staggering about (8)
REVENANT – EN [in “French”], with (TAVERN*) [“staggering”] about

13 My wife gets call to wake up about noon (4,1,5)
WELL I NEVER – W [wife] gets REVEILLE reversed [call to wake “up”] about N [noon]

15 Bottle of wine rogue emptied with tramp before lunchtime? (8)
REHOBOAM – R{ogu}E with HOBO [tramp] + A.M. [before lunchtime]

16 Right-on company stocking pink wine (8)
PROSECCO – PC CO [right-on | company] “stocking” ROSE [pink]

18 Prerequisite for examination to do with eyesight? (8)
REVISION – splittable as RE VISION, [to do with | eyesight]

19 Lack of energy, say? So I start on antibiotics (8)
ASTHENIA – AS THEN I [say | so | I] + A{ntibiotics}. See kindly provided examples in the comments if you were as confused as I was initially about how “as” means “say”, but here it’s essentially short for “such as”.

20 Order separate ingredients for wife? (7)
MANDATE – if she has a MAN and a DATE a woman can get married, er, I guess? M AND ATE = MATE = wife. Thanks galspray!

24 Play shortened a bit (4)
DRAM – DRAM{a} [play “shortened”]

46 comments on “Times 26,735: Careful What You Wish For”

      1. Actually I just re-read your original parsing of MANDATE. Did we ever come up with a name for a mis-parsing that’s far more inventive and amusing than the intended one?
    2. I take it that 19dn isn’t working the same way, AS (THEN) I A? I’ve lost my crosswording mojo so I don’t know any more.
      1. I had “so” = THEN (fair enough), which leaves “as” = SAY (less convincing).

        But then I had EGTHENIA in there at one point, so don’t listen to me.

        1. Yes, me too, but I can’t really wrangle “as” into meaning “say” in my mind, and believe me I’ve spent a few hours trying.
          1. The closest I can get is meaning number 19 of “as” in the OED:

            “19. Introducing instances exemplifying or illustrating a general designation: like and including, such as, of the kind of; for instance, for example. Also occas. in specifying use: namely, to wit. Now chiefly elliptical for such as.”

            Incidentally the whole entry is a lexicographical tour de force, identifying 30 different uses.

            Dereklam

            1. Cor! Can’t say I much approve of that kind of legalistic dictionary use for setting crosswords. I’m reminded of a recent Listener where “the” clued “my” or possibly vice versa because “the wife” = “my wife”. It SORT of works, but still doesn’t feel very satisfying…
              1. These are a couple of the citations, if that helps make it less “legalistic” !

                1841 Penny Mag. Oct. 2 386/1 The plumage consists of an undervest of down (remarkable in some species, as the wild swan and the eider duck, for its softness and delicacy).
                1862 M. R. Barnard tr. F. C. Schübeler Synopsis Veg. Products i. 11 Finer varieties, as for instance the Cob nut, the Red and White Filbert &c., I have only met with in the south of Norway.

                1. Seems legit, if possibly a trifle Victorian! But far be it from me to criticise anything for being a trifle Victorian.

                  Edited at 2017-05-26 09:15 am (UTC)

  2. Done in 23:40 but done in by the mind-warping 8d. I did at one point have the right answer (REVENANT) with the right definition in mind but then had a sort of fools’ penny-drop moment that made me change it to RELEVANT. Not sure what I was thinking — a reversed ‘le’ came into it, as did a vague idea that relevant might equal ‘about’ in some way.

    Have fun in Catalonia, V.

    1. I momentarily entered a state of medium dudgeon over that one thinking it was an indirect anagram, but of course it didn’t have to be once I started looking at it more carefully. There were a lot of things you had to look at carefully in this puzzle – not my natural terrain at all, obviously!
    2. Me too, although I never thought of REVENANT, as I thought the definition was about:-(
  3. Nearly an hour and twenty for me, over two sessions. Delighted to have submitted an all-correct though, avoiding potential disasters at EQUIPAGE, PUTRESCENT, REVENANT, PART WORK, EMMENTAL, ASTHENIA, BALEARIC, REHOBOAM and PROSECCO.

    Got BEEBREAD easily enough, only because a near identical clue occurred in a Jumbo from three years ago, which I happened to solve last night.

    Phew, what a workout. Great puzzle. Thanks setter and V.

    1. BEEBREAD did seem familiar, it must have been from there! I also felt an enormous sense of deja vu over the THROTTLE clue, which is interesting because I don’t think I understand it – isn’t it basically just a straight definition when it comes down to it?
      1. Had the same feeling. It was so simple I assumed I’d missed the point.

        In a near-parallel universe I can imagine pressing submit with that one filled in and everything else still blank.

      2. The BEEBREAD came up in January last year, too, otherwise I wouldn’t have got it.

        I thought the “throttle” was a straight def, but played for the nice surface reading. (I also took a good thirty seconds trying to crab something to do with “carburettor” in there. Sigh.)

  4. I had a similar experience to Sotira’s, only it took me a lot longer; ‘relevant’=’about’ is what I thought, and somehow shoehorned the LE into the mix. Had no idea what was going on in 13d; had an idea–Verlaine’s original idea–as to what was going on in 20d, but Galspray’s surely right. The puzzle felt difficult at the time, but I didn’t take that much more than my usual time in finishing, albeit incorrectly, and without much biffery.
  5. Glad to find this was, indeed, a tough one. I gave up at the end of my hour, though as it turned out I was wrong to do so. I’d assumed that because of the oddities I’d already found—BEEBREAD, REHOBOAM, EQUIPAGE (I learned that one only three days ago; it’s in Jane Eyre), BALEARIC, ASTHENIA (where I’d only pencilled in the “S”, but had the rest…)—that the few I had left were beyond me.

    Not so. I was missing only CAN OF WORMS only from the acrosses, not really associating it with embarrassment, and not having clocked the anagram or thinking of the obvious abbreviation for Civil Service. The few downs I had left were similar; I’d got ON A P___E, FREE ___T, and most of 6d, but just couldn’t wrestle my brain into the right gear.

    Bah. Is there a word for having got through the tough ones on a puzzle, only to be defeated by clues that seem a lot easier in retrospect?

    1. How about “Quality Street”? The hard ones are easy. It’s the soft ones that pull your fillings out.
  6. I got some of the difficult/unknown answers from wordplay but REVENANT, EQUIPAGE, ASTHENIA and PUTRESCENT eluded me and I only completed the grid having resorted to aids after an hour had passed.

    Unfortunately I also needed help with DRAMA as it was my last one standing after an exhausting solve and a quick trawl through the alphabet had failed to identify a likely candidate.

    It kept me reasonably entertained though and I was quite pleased with what I managed to achieve before it became apparent that I was not going to finish unaided.

  7. DNF after an hour, failing on the REVENANT/ MEERKAT crosser. I wanted to make the RAF guy an ACK so much that I forgot about that damned advert, and was lost after doing my REVISION. I’ve not seen the DiCaprio movie, thankfully. BEEBREAD also unknown but finally deduced. MANDATE unparsed, as was ASTHENIA. This was more a pit of vipers than a 12a. COD THROTTLE. Thank you V and setter
  8. Over an hour on flight Edinburgh – Birmingham, but all ok eventually. I suspect there will be few complaints: Erk, mental. But the nativity and the bottle and wine were worth it.
    LOI by a very long way was Putrescent. I had quite the wrong idea about this clue for 15mins. Thanks setter and V.
  9. Off the scale for me too but all done. My references show bee-bread anyone got a one word entry. Going to leave Elgar till later in the afternoon …screens nurse. TY V and setter
  11. Having completed the LHS in 15 mins, I thought this might be an easier than usual Friday. However…. Too many unknowns ERK, REVENANT, ASTHENIA, and then finally defeated by entering PART BOOK. COD to PUTRESCENT for completely bamboozling me when I had all the relevant letters in place.
  12. 15m, but with an error. I couldn’t decide between PART WORK and PART BOOK, and predictably picked the wrong one. ‘Artwork’ seemed a better fit for ‘illustrations’ but I had a strong sense that PART BOOK was a thing and PART WORK wasn’t. Exactly the wrong way round.
    Annoying because I seem to have been on the wavelength for this one, and I really enjoyed it. Lots of nice chewy unbiffable clues.
  13. Phew! That was hard work. 62:09 with one error, and that was Vinyl’s most likely REVENANT where I did indeed put RELEVANT. I had A_THUSIA for 19d until ARRAIGNS hove into view. LOI was PUTRESCENT where it took me ages to make any sense of the clue even with all the crossers. I’d also been toying with *(earlier set) before EQUIPAGE went in. I’d never heard of the bottle, but went with the wordplay. Glad it wasn’t just me struggling! A beast, Mr Setter, and thanks Verlaine.
  14. As others have said, a beast, but a fair one. By the time I got to BEEBREAD and ASTHENIA I was right on the limits of my knowledge, and feeling as if we were wandering into Mephisto territory, but I got there in surprisingly good time. Pretty sure I dredged up ERK from Biggles – never underestimate the power of vintage childrens’ books to come to the rescue…
  15. 42 mins, but all correct so I can’t complain as almost everyone else seems to have found it a beast as well. I’ve got no mitigating circumstances because I took a flexi day today, and I did the puzzle after an hour’s shuteye on the couch post-lunch. Sotira and Keriothe posted excellent times, admittedly spoiled by their single errors, and I always expect V to post a good time although it was interesting to note that he was the wrong side of 20 mins. I never felt that I was on that kind of wavelength, I didn’t get a single answer on first read-through of the acrosses, and REHOBOAM was my FOI. I finished the LHS a lot faster than the RHS, and I spent an age at the end on my last two, the EQUIPAGE/PUTRESCENT crossers. A tip of the hat to the setter for an excellent challenge.
    1. The wrong side of 20 minutes usually means that something has gone badly wrong, these days, as normally it’s possible to surmount even a mentally blocked clue given 30 seconds and an alphabet search… as I say, I blame double unches and having shoved in multiple whimsical wrong guesses!
  17. Way too many for me, with a combination of expressions I am not familiar with (no sin there, in my book) – words I am not familiar with but should be (definitely a sin), and then, in a big win for the setter, words I perfectly well know and clues I understand, but which I start to assume fall into one of the first two categories.
  18. Sorry to be a wet blanket. I’m usually very tolerant and try to avoid being disagreeable. But I have a handicapped son, and when I reached the clue for 27A where ‘crackers’ = ‘mental’, I threw this puzzle aside and didn’t bother to finish. This kind of thing has appeared before, but today it hit home, and I was repulsed. Setter, and Editor: both terms in the sense you’ve used them are appalling to those who live with this condition. Not funny, not clever, at all.
    1. Kevin, in defence of the setter and the editor both of those terms can be more innocently synonymous in the UK, either with describing an oddball or a crowd reaction at a sports event. However, I can certainly see why their appearance would touch a nerve.

      Edited at 2017-05-27 08:49 am (UTC)

    2. Fair comment Kevin. These puzzles often take us back to a previous time, and not always in a good way.

    3. Mm, I do see Andy’s point that in modern British usage you’d probably hear these words innocuously used to describe some ridiculous event or situation, but that’s not to say a bit more awareness of the derivation wouldn’t have been in order. It’s easy not to realise you’re being disablist – as I discovered at a conference last year when a speaker was called out for repeatedly using “dumb” to mean stupid. Clearly no malice was meant by that but we can and should all try to be better.
  19. I agree that this was tough but actually not too far off my usual solving experience taking up 23 mins on the train this morning, 32 mins at lunchtime and then a further 5 mins after work to get my LOI 6dn where it took ages to finally twig “re scent” but once twigged “put” wasn’t far behind. FOI 5dn. Flirted with Balzac as the writer at 10ac where I thought the king might be just “r” but common sense prevailed and I reverse engineered the obvious Balearic. I thought Throttle an oddly straightforward almost straight definition thrown in amongst a more fiendish bunch. DNK “erk” but 17ac had to be meerkat. Word play was very handy at 15dn. I hashed the parsing of man date at 20dn but what the hey, they all count. No real difficulty with asthenia. I ummed and aahed over part book or part work for exactly the same reasons as Keriothe luckily I found artwork the most persuasive element. Very pleased to finish all correct. COD 13dn.
  20. I forgot to add that I spent 5 years working in the CTN trade in the 80s so
    PART WORK didn’t pose too much of a problem.

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