Times 26779 – Time to walk, time to run….

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Time:  22 minutes

Music: Berlioz, Harold in Italy, Davis/Menuhin/LSO.

Despite my good time, I found parts of this puzzle rather inexplicable.   Some of the cryptics are very obscure, and give little reassurance to a biffer hoping for a quick time.   Yes, you can figure most ot them out eventually, but this is likely to slow down your solve considerably.   At least none of the answers are at all obscure, which would have made this puzzle very difficult indeed.

Two other quick notes:

I am very pleased with the two newest bloggers I have recruited, known locally as brnchn and curarist.   We have a good reliable set of bloggers here, who post their blogs on time and without fuss, but I always have some degree of  trepidation when I bring in a new blogger.      However, their blogs have turned out to be excellent, fully up to the high standard we try to maintain.

As Verlaine has mentioned, he is visiting New York City at the beginning of August.   We are trying to set something up for the 30th of July, which will probably be in a public bar or restaurant.   As soon as we have a venue fixed, I’ll make an announcement.

Across
1 Didn’t shut reference book writer has gone into (6)
OPENED – O.(PEN)E.D., our old friend the Oxford English Dictionary.
5 Worrying about noise recurring in Alcatraz, say (8)
CAREWORN – The evident answer, but I really can’t make anything of the cryptic.   ‘About’ must = either ‘c’ or ‘ca’, but that’s as far as I can get. The correct parsing is CA(RE + ROW backards)N.  I was completely fooled by C/CA.
9 Car judge reversed across street (8)
DRAGSTER – REGARD backwards around ST.
10 Place to meet in ‘ackney? That is relative (6)
AUNTIE – [h[AUNT + I.E.
11 Book in its entirety produced on time, in fact (10)
TRUTHFULLY – T + RUTH FULLY, another book of the Bible clue.
13 Sound of gunfire from urban guerrillas (4)
BANG – hidden in [ur]BAN G[uerillas].
14 Mentioned a bit of a fork in river (4)
TYNE – sounds like TINE.
15 Playing tonight — Man City (10)
NOTTINGHAM – anagram of TONIGHT – MAN.   I had biffed “Tottingham”, but I have learned enough to count the letters by now.
18 Cheers a military officer seizing large city of old (3,3,4)
ALL THE BEST – A L(L,THEBES)T, where “of old” does not indicate an ‘o’ or an ‘ex’.
20 Fancy wife and that man getting together (4)
WHIM – W + HIM, a clue escaped from the Quickie.
21 Farm animal eats hot dog (4)
CHOW – C(H)OW, another Quickie clue
23 Lolly: endlessly gooey snack item (10)
BREADSTICK – BREAD + STICK[y].
25 To the west, a space in which to create temple (6)
PAGODA – A DO GAP backwards, lift and separate.
26 Little fellow’s to hitchhike, covering miles (3,5)
TOM THUMB – TO (M) THUMB.
28 Note enclosed by a person posting letter (8)
ASCENDER – A S(C)ENDER, a technical term of typography.
29 Dim-witted baronet stuck in river (6)
OBTUSE – O(BT.)USE.   It is helpful to know the correct abbreviation for baronet!

Down
2 Jamaican town or ancient city in China (4,5)
PORT ROYAL – Double definition. Now a town in Jamaica, it was a large city until destroyed by by an earthquake in 1692.   It is also apparently a style or brand of porcelain, but this has proved very hard to track down  P(OR TROY)AL is the correct parsing, so the existence of the china I allude to in my reply to npbull must be a coincidence.
3 Item of lingerie at hand, with lace on the bottom (7)
NIGHTIE – NIGH + TIE, where ‘lace’ is a verb.
4 Oz heroine briefly making a point (3)
DOT – Double definition, where ‘Dot’ is the nickname for ‘Dorothy’.   However, the Oz heroine is always called ‘Dorothy’.
5 Hymn about Jesus almost over? (5)
CAROL – CA + LOR[d] upside-down.
6 Keen to study ditty we composed (5-6)
READY-WITTED – READ + anagram of DITTY WE.
7 Shoot the breeze principally? One might (7)
WINDBAG – I can only see a cryptic definition.   ‘The breeze principally’ might indicate ‘B’, but I can’t get any further on this li WIND + BAG, where BAG is a verb.   ‘Principally’ indicates that WIND comes first.
8 Govern Niger after revolution (5)
REIGN – anagram of NIGER.
12 Bit of a fiddle? Suspect council of guilt (11)
FINGERBOARD – FINGER BOARD, in an entirely different sense.
16 Finish off next article (3)
THE – THE[n], another Quickie escapee.
17 A funny programme and last parts of The Professionals, in no set order (2,2,5)
AS IT COMES – A SITCOM + [th]E [professional]S.
19 Closed faulty power line (7)
TOWROPE – TO + anagram of POWER.   ‘To’ meaning ‘closed’ often catches me out.
20 We act oddly, note, in cave! (5,2)
WATCH IT – W[e] A[C]T + CHIT.  The temptation to make an anagram (oddly) of WE ACT is very strong.
22 Takes charge of macho publicity? (5)
HEADS – HE-ADS.
24 Half-decent Queen record (5)
ENTER – [dec]ENT + ER.
27 Minutes accepted at the start by old chairman (3)
MAO – M[inutes] A[ccepted] + O.

70 comments on “Times 26779 – Time to walk, time to run….”

  1. Alcatraz = CAN, about = RE, noise recurring = WOR (reverse ROW).
    China = PAL; insert OR + TROY.
    Shoot = BAG; preceded by (“principally”) WIND (breeze).

    Edited at 2017-07-17 01:50 am (UTC)

  2. CAREWORN was my LOI; it took me a while to work out the parsing, especially as I was thinking at first of CARE as an includer. ‘Didn’t shut’ seems a poor definition of OPENED. I see McText has added the parsing of WINDBAG, so I’ll delete my superfluous message.
  3. Enjoyed this one, as it had all the tricks in the setter’s book without being especially difficult.

    Last one in was the unknown (to me) ASCENDER, relieved to hear that it was “not at all obscure”!

    COD to NOTTINGHAM, despite, like the blogger, having flirted with TOTTINGHAM.

    Nice start to the week. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

  4. This is not quite a record for me, but pretty close. I wonder if my time improves by being on holidays.

    PAGODA was my last in, taking a few minutes to parse it properly for confidence.

    Thanks, Vinyl, for the blog and I echo galspray’s “nice start to the week” nod to the setter.

  5. a bit slow for a Monday but I was out early – yet still in week-end mode.

    FOI and as per LG my COD is 15ac NOTTINGHAM (TOTTINGHAM was once famously used in an ad for throat lozenges in the UK.)

    LOI 11ac TRUTHFULLY.

    WOD CAREWORN

    It was 37C at 9.00am and and another week of ‘scorchio’ is forecast.

    Edited at 2017-07-17 06:10 am (UTC)

  6. After yesterday’s puzzle which I’ve still barely started, it was a delight to actually finish today’s! I’m not altogether convinced about “recurring” as a reversal indicator, but otherwise everything made sense, once I’d checked several definitions in the dictionary! COD 20dn, where I too was looking for an anagram.

    PS: thanks for the kind words, vinyl1!

    Edited at 2017-07-17 03:15 am (UTC)

  7. I interpreted “city of old” as Thebes, a refreshing departure from Ur. mvs
      1. Sorry for having been unclear. I meant to say that it was good that “old city” stood for something other than “ur”.
  8. 10:55 … a few tricky things to wake the brain from its weekend, tennis-watching stupor.

    COD to PORT ROYAL

  9. … harder than yer average Monday. And some nice devices to be appreciated. Only near downfall was being lured, as it were, into a different kind of lingerie at 3dn with N?G???E already in. (Might add that I’ve encountered a fair few nighties that would not, under any circumstances, count as “lingerie”.)
  10. Considering there were some really easy clues here I made heavy weather of this to the point where I ran out of steam half way through th egrid and nodded off. Still, I got there in the end.

    I agree with misgivings about the definition at 1ac. “Didn’t shut” is not the same as “opened”.

    Edited at 2017-07-17 06:34 am (UTC)

  11. 25 mins over rhubarb and vanilla yoghurt – and it has all been said. Eyebrow raised at ‘opened’ and ‘recurring’. Otherwise steady stuff. I had Port Royal as ‘or Troy’ in Pal – which meant we had a Troy as well as a Thebes today. Thanks setter and Vinyl.

    Edited at 2017-07-17 06:45 am (UTC)

  12. 13:48. A little tricky in places. ASCENDER was the only obscurity but the wordplay was clear. I did consider every possible note though.
    I slowed myself down by convincing myself 15ac was going to end -INGTON. Or not so much convincing myself as thinking of it first and then struggling to get beyond that idea even after my rational mind had concluded that it couldn’t be right.
  13. Nice straightforward stuff. I think I knew ASCENDER from my wife being a primary school teacher; I’m sure she’s mentioned them at some point.

    The mentions above of TOTTINGHAM take me back to one of Tottenham Hotspur’s FA Cup victories in ’81 or ’82 when there was a strong tradition of teams releasing an FA Cup song (thankfully a tradition that’s now ceased unless I’ve just not heard recent ones). The great Argentinian player Ossie Ardiles was well known for singing that he wanted to “win the cup for Tottingham”.

  14. Was cruising through this, until like Vinyl stymied by the CAREWORN/ WINDBAG crosser when I hit the harder stuff on Rue Morgue Avenue. Would have been at 15 minutes but didn’t parse CAREWORN for another 10 minutes and just biffed WINDBAG. COD TOM THUMB for giving me today’s ear worm. We’re off up to Lancashire this affo, so won’t be posting until the weekend. Thank you V and setter.
    1. I like Judy Collins’ version on the In My Life album. She also does an excellent version of Pirate Jenny from the Three Penny Opera 🙂
      1. She and his Bobship were briefly an item reputedly. Loved her version of Joni’s Both Sides Now and she does a brilliant Send in the Clowns.
        1. Yes, both excellent versions. Both Sides Now is on the same album as Tom Thumb’s Blues and Pirate Jenny. It inspired me to do a duet with my daughter at our last Folk Club charity session for the Woodlands Centre in Valley Gardens in Saltburn. Judy was the first to release it after Joni wrote it.
  15. recurring = coming back? seems doubly cryptic. A meaty puzzle for a Monday <19′. COD to WINDBAG. Thanks vinyl and setter.
  16. I was less than happy with the ASCENDER = ‘letter’. In typography, the ascenders are the sticky up bits on the lowercase letters such as h, d, l, b (in contradistinction to the ‘descenders’ on g, j, y). One can analyse lowercase Roman letter-shapes therefore into the central chunk — defined by an imaginary pair of parallel horizontal lines separated by a gap which is the ‘x-height’ — and the ascenders and descenders poking up above or below the x-height lines. Anyway, an ascender isn’t a letter!
    1. Chambers is a bit ambiguous on this, defining ASCENDER as ‘ (the upper part of) a letter such as b,d h,k (printing etc) ‘. My SOED doesn’t even have the word.
      1. My SOED has 2 Typography & Palaeography. An ascending letter; a part or stroke projecting above letters such as x. M19.
    2. I guessed that it was an &lit clue with ASCENDER a musical note in a piece rising to a crescendo. I don’t think I should have just admitted that.
    3. Yes, I wondered about that, but the setter’s ‘get out of jail free card’ is to be found in Collins on this occasion:

      ascender 1. printing
      a. the part of certain lower-case letters, such as b or h, that extends above the body of the letter
      b. any letter having such a part

      1. Though I’ve done a fair bit of typography (and typesetting) in my time, I’d never heard of “ascender” as the whole letter; just its extension. Put it in on trust, then checked ODO — which has much the same as Collins.

        Personally, I find descenders more aesthetically pleasing. Certain words with a high proportion of them appeal. “Egypt” for example — though you need to set it in a better font than LJ’s rather horrid Trebuchet MS.

        1. I recall fondly studying typography at the Ontario College of Art and Design; have used the knowledge in my artwork and cartooning. I too recall the assignment given us ..use your imagination and design with the following “TYPOGRAPHY CAN BE BEAUTIFUL”…it got us learning the fonts and their proper use. The students produced some lovely work. Some stinkers too.
          p.s. I’ll mutter over that definition as well.
      2. Ah! OK, OK — I’ll grudgingly accept it, then. [mutter…mutter…mumble…bah!]
  17. …but otherwise this was a lovely Monday crossword, which we (my wife and I) romped through in our best time ever. Really enjoyed it.

    Edited at 2017-07-17 08:58 am (UTC)

  18. 20 minutes, a bit trickier than usual Monday as noted above. Not convinced by 1a definition and guessed PORT ROYAL, then saw the TROY bit afterwards. Alcatraz = CAN was a bit of a stretch too, although I suppose it is just a prison. Impressively scary, I remember from a visit 35 years ago.
  20. Pareto strikes again! 80% of this was Quickie standard easy, the other 20% rather different…
    In the interests of efficiency I will just add +1 to the various gripes and grumbles already expressed.
  21. Like McText I parsed this as P OR TROY AL, that is OR TROY inside PAL = China. This was my FOI.
    When I read Vinyl1’s version I wondered whether this was a very clever clue indeed in being a cryptic – as above – AND a double definition as in V1’s blog?

    However – V1 mentions that tracking down Port Royal as a type of China is difficult. We have to conclude, perhaps, that it isn’t?

    Thanks to setter & V1 for blog. LOI the darned ASCENDER. Time ca 1 hour over a few sessions.

  22. Was anyone else surprised by ‘ready-witted’? New one on me. – joekobi
    1. It’s in SOED. I can’t say I’ve ever come across it but to say someone has ‘a ready wit’ is fairly common I think.

      Edited at 2017-07-17 10:05 am (UTC)

  23. A DNF, but not a bad one. I made the terrible mistake of taking on a new contract, starting this morning, so I allowed myself only half an hour instead of my usual relaxed hour.

    I surprised myself by only having one left when the bell rang, 11ac, but sadly I stared for another couple of minutes but didn’t get there, so ended up cheating to finish it off and get out the door.

    I don’t feel too bad as (a) being down to one left in half an hour is really very fast compared to my usual pace, and (b) arbitrary books of the Bible will never be my strong point.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

  25. I must have been way on the setters wavelength coming in a tick under 8 minutes with the only one going in from wordplay alone being ASCENDER. I rather liked this one.
  26. I liked this puzzle which took me exactly 34 minutes, although I had the same reservations as others about 1a and was looking for something re-occurring in 5a. FOI was AUNTIE and LOI CAREWORN where I failed to parse it fully until coming here. I wondered briefly if the Birdman of Alcatraz had a Casowary:-) Like Keriothe I was slowed by ____INGTON, but eventually concluded that there wasn’t a city called MATHINGTON after all. Liked TRUTHFULLY. Thanks setter and V.
  27. 12 mins. I’m enjoying a flexi day and did the puzzle just after lunch which is never usually an ideal time of day for me, but for once I didn’t nod off or lose concentration. Count me as another who wasn’t overly happy with the definition for 1ac. WATCH IT went in from the definition once all the checkers were in place and I never did parse it, although in retrospect I should have been able to. I couldn’t get away from thinking that “ACT” oddly had been placed inside WHIT. Like one or two others CAREWORN was my LOI, in my case after CAROL.
  28. Just watched England capitulate (which was as predictable as the next full moon). So Collins needs a new definition of the verb To England. My proposal would be something like ‘to fail to meet expectation, even when expected to fail’. Gutless performance and professionals making errors that a decent village side wouldn’t. Which brings me to 1a, another verb that cannot apply to England. 2a is the poor spectator’s aspect.

    Nice puzzle even though I couldn’t parse all. About 40 minutes which is slightly longer than their second innings

  29. “Didn’t close” for “opened” reminded me of Baldrick’s proposed definition of “cat” for Dr. Johnson’s dictionary in Blackadder – “not a dog”.
    1. … which in turn reminds me of a clue in Violet Elizabeth’s crossword in one of the William books: “Opposite of cat (3)”. (In case you need help with a checked letter, the only other clue (the two answers intersected in the centre of a 3×3 grid) was “Wot you have drops of (3)”.)

      Edited at 2017-07-17 11:05 pm (UTC)

  30. About 15 minutes, ending with ASCENDER. I confess I really didn’t have any idea what an ASCENDER is before today. Educational exercise today, at ;least on that one. The rest didn’t present much in the way of issues today. Regards.
  31. 1 Across reminds me I’ve been meaning to ask why there is no link to the oed (www.oed.com) in the list of links. The OED online is now open to virtually anyone with a library card number.
  32. I did half of this in 23 mins this AM and the rest in 24 mins at lunchtime. FOI 13ac. Some of the clues caused me problems and I was definitely not on the wavelength. I bunged in DOT from def and came here for enlightenment and possibly a link to Wikipedia on who this Australian heroine might be – Doh! 11ac and 28ac took ages to unravel and I came here for enlightenment on the “letter” definition of ascender. Also had to bung in “watch it” on the basis of CAVE – as the blogger says, the temptation to make an anagram of “we act” is very strong – so much so that I never managed to parse it properly. LOI 5ac which took an age to parse, at one stage I wondered if there might be a special lexical term for a word like Alcatraz “- – – – word”. Got there in the end though. COD 5dn. I’m glad others have said they found the weekend puzzles hard – I found Saturday’s in particular an unusually difficult test.
  33. 1 across reminds me I meant to ask why there is no link to the OED (www dot oed dot com) on this page. Access is pretty much universal now that one only needs a library card number to log in.
  34. DNF
    I couldnt get the Pagoda/towrope crossers.
    Why is ‘to’ referred to as ‘closed’?
    I cant think of the context.
  35. 11:13 for me, some way of the setter’s wavelength – starting with 1ac, which I solved (very slowly) first time through, but (like others) was put off by OPENED = “didn’t shut”.

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