Times 26871 – am I wrong?

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
For me this puzzle fell into the catgory of those which at first sight seem impenetrable but once opened up, they unravel and reveal some fine work by the setter; by the end you wonder what was so difficult about it. I began in SW corner with 16d and 17d then 21a and the rest around that area; soon the entire bottom half was in before I’d tried any above. The light dawned on 5a which made the NE quadrant flow in. The last quarter (NW) took as long as the rest put together. A total of around 25 minutes, not helped by my entering a wrong answer for 8a and deciding to come back later and parse it (which wasn’t possible as it was wrong).
No doubt others will have a totally different experience and solve it top down in a fraction of my time.

Across
1 Fund-raiser managed to keep one on register (8)
ROTARIAN – ROTA = register, RAN, insert I. I was a Rotarian for a few years in Ireland, a long time ago,`but I remember it was more about lunches than bucket-rattling; perhaps times have changed.
5 Sounding board for scientist (6)
PLANCK – I went through my small repertoire of scientists with 6 letters without hitting paydirt, then saw 5d probably began with a P and the penny dropped. Max Planck, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1918 and most famous for his ‘constant’, h. He sounds like plank, of course, = board.
8 Tradesmen initially endorsing defective edging tool (10)
GRINDSTONE – I went wrong here by thinking ‘tradesmen initially’ was GUIL(D) and popping in GUILLOTINE without further justification. Maybe an efficient French ‘edging tool’, but wrong, as 4d soon showed. My tiny printout and poor eyesight had read ‘defective’ as detective as well. Then I saw it was in fact ‘defective’ so perhaps an anagram! (T ENDORSING)* in fact. Two short plancks, indeed.
9 Indian ruler beheaded by legendary hero (4)
AJAX – (R)AJA, X = BY. Trojan War hero after whom the scourer was presumably named.
10 Betraying no emotion or lost for words? (14)
EXPRESSIONLESS – Double definition, one more literal than the other.
11 Prepare endlessly and study in China (7)
DRESDEN – DRES(S) = prepare endlessly; DEN = study.
13 Direction needed to hold ceremony all together (2,5)
EN MASSE – ENE (east-north-east) holds MASS (ceremony).
15 Church man has change of heart: that’s hard cheese! (7)
CHEDDAR – CH = church, I think the man with the change of heart was EDGAR he becomes EDDAR.
18 Gas across battlefield becomes mourning symbol (7)
CYPRESS – CS is tear gas 2-chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, laid across YPRES the battle. Cypress trees have been symbolic of mourning and planted in graveyards both Christian and Moslem since ancient times. The Wiki article on cupressus sempervirens is well worth a browse. And the CS stands for the surnames of the chaps who developed it in 1928, Corson and Stoughton. Useful quiz-info.
21 Meeting before match reportedly bearing fruit (10,4)
CONFERENCE PEAR – CONFERENCE = meeting, PEAR sounds like pair, match. Wiki says “It owes its name to the fact that it won first prize at the National British Pear Conference in London in 1885” which sounds a bit glib to me. A pear conference? Really?
22 Scots have to contain river that runs in field (4)
HARE – ‘HAE’ is Scottish dialect for have, it seems, insert an R for river. I read a Scottish joke yesterday, once I’d understood it I thought it was quite amusing. Move on quickly if you’re in a hurry or don’t like taking the P out of the Scots. Short-sighted man in Scottish bakery, points to the counter; ‘Excuse me, is that a doughnut, or a meringue?’ Baker replies: Naw, yer right, mate, it is a doughnut.’
23 Weaver entertains animated virgin where people relax (6-4)
LIVING-ROOM – Insert (VIRGIN)* into LOOM. I wanted it to involve BOTTOM the weaver, but no.
24 Note Caruso perhaps articulated (6)
TENNER – Sounds like TENOR, which Caruso was.
25 Excessive to provoke fascist troops (8)
NEEDLESS – NEEDLE = provoke, SS = Fascist troops.

Down
1 Wager lost with pressman finding growth (7)
RAGWEED – (WAGER)* followed by ED for pressman. A bit of a vague definition, but the wordplay was simple.
2 Dog bit rear end (9)
TAILPIECE – TAIL = dog, PIECE = bit.
3 Communist nut one in ginger group? (7)
REDHEAD – I saw this as RED = Communist, HEAD = nut, once I’d got rid of the L from my French chopper.
4 Technician‘s ardent supporter rendered powerless (7)
ARTISAN – PARTISAN = ardent supporter, loses its P. Is an artisan a technician? Round here, he or she is more of an arty crafty type. As in ‘artisan baker’.
5 Some months before the new issue is due? (9)
PREGNANCY – A cryptic definition, not very subtle, I thought it was going to be smarter but it did help with Mr Planck.
6 One conventional lawyer seen in public walk (7)
ALAMEDA – A, LAME, DA. Fortunately a word I’ve met before in crosswords. Here I think LAME can mean conventional as in ‘a lame excuse’.
7 Husband tucks into liqueur that strengthens body (7)
CHASSIS – H goes into CASSIS, the blackcurrant liqueur which makes undrinkable white wine nearly drinkable.
12 Craftsman always inscribes signature — with double line! (9)
ENAMELLER – E’ER = always, goes around NAME and LL = double line.
14 Worker in dock, first wife having died in warehouse (9)
STEVEDORE – STORE = warehouse; insert EVE = first wife, and D = died. Were Adam and Eve married, then? If so who married them?
16 Land measured out in the race (7)
HECTARE – (THE RACE)*.
17 Muck over time found in subterraneous accommodation (7)
DUNGEON – DUNG = muck goes over EON = time. My FOI.
18 Outspoken European satire (7)
CANDIDE – CANDID = outspoken, E(uropean). Satire by Voltaire, not to be confused with Verlaine.
19 Made promise: none to escape policeman outside nick (7)
PLEDGED – PLOD loses its O then goes outside EDGE = nick, today’s cricket reference.
20 Lives frugally where fellows congregate with devils (7)
SCRIMPS – SCR – Senior Common Room, where fellows congregate, IMPS = devils.

45 comments on “Times 26871 – am I wrong?”

  1. 40 minutes for this, with a lot of scribbling, ending with ‘needless’, where I was trying to work in brownshirts – no mean feat. I mean, bothering to try.

    Voltaire’s extended fudge at Leibniz is rather fun. I reckon Adam and Eve belonged to an Edenic state in which there was no marriage or giving in marriage. At least they were spared the Best Man’s speech and the uncle’s drunken antics with the Maid of Honour.

  2. For me this was a solving experience not dissimilar to our blogger’s as decribed in his intro, although I needed 38 minutes to fill the grid. The NE corner put up most resistance with the scientist and the public walk as my last ones in. Both were known to me but at the very limits of my GK.
  3. The NW was my hardest quadrant, too, with 8ac, 1d, and finally 1ac my last ones in. I didn’t think about Mrs. Eve, let alone Lilith; but when in the OT does marriage first appear? No need to answer that, anyone. I thought I DNK SCR, but now I see I did. Liked PLANCK.
    1. Arguably Genesis 2:25 where “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame”. Married in the sight of God only, presumably, there being no congregation to speak of.
  4. Feel like I got lucky with alameda and the pear: two weeks ago I’d never heard of them. And now I’ve learned a satire and a china

    Edited at 2017-11-01 08:30 am (UTC)

  5. Note to self: solving these puzzles is much easier when you put the right answers in the correct location: 3d is not RAGWEED and 13a is not CHEDDAR. Other than those self-inflicted traps, a nice straight-forward workout, I thought. Like Pip, the NW corner was the most intractable. Difficult to say how long I took with a demanding 2 year old running around.
  6. 16.58, so enough time left to get two more in. Didn’t think much to pregnancy (as a clue, that is), and couldn’t get ROTARIAN until everything else was in.
    I suspect ALAMEDA now only turns up in crosswords.
    Excellent blogging, Pip, with lots of fun facts. Cheers!
  7. I had a similar experience to Pip, with my first pass at the across clues yielding one answer and making me think this was going to be tough but then gradually the pieces dropped into place. When I faced my penultimate entry, ALAMEDA, I knew we’d seen it before and that last time we had it, it reminded me of the character Tony Almeida from the TV series 24. So I have Tony to thank for eventually helping me remember it today. That left me with LOI AJAX.
  8. On wavelength (I’d have used lambda but can’t find the Greek letters) and finished in 21 minutes. ALAMEDA a bit of a biff as LAME for conventional seems a bit, how should we say, lame, but seemed the best bet once AJAX the foaming cleanser was in place. PLANCK (with h for his constant, c the speed of light and E the energy I’ve woken up with)) of course was a write-in for a 1960s physicist. We’d salivate at the mention of his name as psychology students did with Pavlov’s. Heisenberg and Schrödinger took us to yet higher ecstasy levels. COD to CONFERENCE PEAR even though our recently-planted tree didn’t fruit this year. Thank you Pip and setter.

    Edited at 2017-11-01 09:14 am (UTC)

    1. As a 1960s chemist with leanings towards the biochem spectrum, names like Schrödinger and Heisenberg definitely did not induce ecstasy. I am still not convinced about that witchcraft stuff with the cat in two places at once.
      1. Wait until quantum biology really gets going. You’ll lose all your certainty then!
      2. It’s a weird argument that has the cat dead and alive at the same time. The state is surely that of the would-be observer’s ignorance.
        1. There was a whole load of stuff back then as to whether consciousness was needed to collapse the wave function. Otherwise the uncertainty would appear to be transferred down the observation system, mechanical or animate, to the end of time. Just after then a theory called decoherence emerged, which regards the problem of the overall system as too big to be observed and thus not real. I doubt if Einstein would have been happy with it though. He couldn’t believe God played dice in the first place. I like the uncertainty: anything at any level which says that the uncertainty is fundamental makes the universe more interesting!
    2. The name of those ‘boys in the band’ that always comes to my mind from secondary school Physics 40+ years ago is Louis de Broglie and his idea of the wave-particle duality of matter. I can’t say I ever understood it, but it sounds intriguing. Funnily enough, I also remember his obit. in The Times in the late 1980’s.
  9. 38’, but defeated by ALAMEDA. Took a while to get going, did top half first. Thanks pip and setter.
  10. I could nearly have written the same blog Pip except I got Max P immediately. He sat there in splendid isolation for some time!

    Excellent puzzle I thought with 18A both topical and well constructed. Well blogged mate.

  11. Same as others with “lame”. Like Pip I went with “guild” for quite some time but I didn’t have his clever idea of a guillotine as an edging tool – nice one! I must admit (sotto voce) that if I want a blackcurrant drink I’d rather have Ribena. Other than that this went in smoothly. 14.07
  12. @6dn was my LOI DNK. Lame a bit lame as previously stated.

    FOI 14ac STEVEDORE.

    Like most others a slow start and trouble in the NW. Time 48 mins.

    COD 7dn CHASSIS

    WOD 5ac PLANCK

    14ac was CHEDDAR alright but another lame clue IMHO!

  14. If I may say, I share the opinions of Pip and Jimbo on this one, a delightful and inventive solve. Looking at parsings subsequent to said solve, I wondered how I’d managed to take quite so long!

    Great stuff, thanks Pip and setter.

  15. Just over 30 mins of bottom-up solving ending in the NW. The C in the JCR/SCR of my Fenbog college stood for Combination rather than Common but no matter… No COD but thanks setter and pip.
  16. This grid was designed to make this 2 crosswords in one, methinks. Stared at the whole thing blankly for an age, and then saw FOI CONFERENCE PEAR, which caused bottom half to fill in within minutes. Apart from CHASSIS the top half took forever and was pleased to come in under the hour without resorting to aids. COD PREGNANCY. Many thanks to the setter – 5/5 for satisfaction.
  17. I managed to stick a couple of entries in the NW (DRESDEN and REDHEAD) before moving on to PLANCK and PREGNANCY, and was able to almost fill the NE before moving South. 10a remained ______SIONLESS for a while as I inserted likely letters as indicated by existing entries. When the outspoken European and fascists remained inscrutable, I moved back to the TAILPIECE and inserted the rest of the ROTARIANS, having spotted the garden interloper and Tito’s helper. AJAX having performed his heroics gave me the vaguely remembered ALAMEDA, and I moved back to the SE where I spotted NEEDLESS and stopped looking for a homophonic European, when the French satire gave me an Archimedean moment and I pressed submit at 26:14. A most enjoyable puzzle. Thanks setter and Pip.
  18. I also started at the bottom and ended up with what should have been AJAX but I couldn’t see it and had to leave, so I bunged in AHAB. He wasn’t really a hero, unless all protagonists are heroes. I wondered if Indian ruler could be Maha (as in maharaja) and BY beheaded I made B (although it is tailed I see now, but it seemed right at the time).

    I also wanted to get Bottom the weaver into 23a and wondered if BOTTLE-ROOM was a thing and who the famous virgin LERO was, before I saw how the clue actually worked.

  19. He seems a constant in crosswords. Too many homophones for me. Struggled in top half finally with a DNF as I couldnt guess Almeda. Otherwise nearly an hour. The quantum experts will hopefully solve the mysteries of the universe one day. I can think of many advantages of being able to be in two places at once (and twins would have a field day). COd Hare. Loved the blog
    1. If Gödel is right with his Maths, N, then an ultimate theory will never be available. QM doesn’t say you can be in two places at once. That’s from multiverse theories, which definitionally can never be tested empirically. Pity Bolton’s defence can’t be in two places at once though.
      1. Bolton have a defence?

        Last time I was at the Reebok, they were playing Arsenal, and lost. Free fall since then.

        1. Well I’m pretty certain that Bolton don’t conform to quantum theory as their position is certain and we also know they have no momentum. Having said that one of the joys of life was watching Big Sam’s team giving Arsenal a good going-over at the Reebok – the look on Arsene’s face and the pathetic sulking of their players was a delight! What goes around comes around (not sure if that is Planck or Einstein). Only joking of course
          1. Mrs K comes from Bolton and as a child lived next door t’ut then manager … so divided loyalties here, although she has since the freefall switched her support to a real Premiership club! But I’m from Dorset like Jimbo.
            1. Not sure of your age Pip, or that of Mrs Pip. Was she living next door to the great Bill Ridding or a later manager? Has she really transferred her affections to Arsenal after that ideal start in life?
              1. Bill Ridding indeed. I am told she left Kingswood Ave, Heaton, 64 years ago, aged 10 I believe. Moved t’ut Yorkshire and never looked back.
                1. Goodness me! Moving to Yorkshire from God’s own County then switching allegiance to a southern (southern!) club – we need to enhance the law of treason.
                  1. Indeed. My father in law never quite took kindly to a southern smartarse in an Afghan coat. He went from Lancs EB to Yorks as a top YEB bloke so was also something of a traitor. Mrs K had little choice at the time. She’s just come over all unneccesary totes emosh as we toured Kingwood ave on google Earth.
  20. I gave up after an hour, of which the first 20 minutes was spent on the bottom half, the second 20 staring blankly and the last on completing the upper half, except for ALAMEDA and AJAX.

    Given that 6d is, in my opinion, a fairly obscure word, I think the wordplay could have been kinder, eg “One limping lawyer…”, “One legless lawyer…”.

    Anyway, thanks for the blog. I assumed CYPRESS referred to the black cloth, so it’s interesting to discover that the tree is also a symbol of mourning.

  21. PS COD goes to 19d for sheer irreverence – I think it’s the first time I’ve come across “plod” in a crossword.
    1. I agree re PLOD. Never seen it here before. It reminds me of the Welsh Language soap “Poble y Cwm” where there used to be a policeman character called Rhodri – always known as “Rhod the Plod”.
  22. Well, a bunch of unknowns extended this out to 40 minutes, those including ‘CS’, ‘SCR’, the CONFERENCE PEAR, forgetting about the ‘plod’ and thinking ‘lame’ was lame. But persistence paid off, and all correct after LOI ROTARIANS. I thought the Rotarians were a peculiarly US occurrence, but apparently their existence across the sea is just another unknown that I’ve been enlightened about today. Regards.
  23. As our blogger said this was impenetrable at first sight.
    So I took it to the pub and, after a pint of Doombar, it was still impenetrable.
    So back down to earth after the last two days. David
  24. 18 minutes or thereabouts. I got a bit stuck with most of the NW unconquerable but working with the correct letters for 8 (i.e. not tradesmene) got me sorted.

    I was surprised to see one = A at 6d as I thought that was a no-no in the daily puzzle.

  25. Similar solving experience to that described by the blogger and others. After 16 mins on the train this morning I had only entered four answers. Came back to the puzzle after work and got through it all in 21 mins. Looking back I’m struggling to see why it had seemed so impenetrable this morning. FOI 11ac. LOI 1ac. COD 25ac.
  26. Who married Adam and Eve? Why, the serpent, of course! Cassis also is a necessary ingredient of ‘kir royal’. As a piece of crossword trivia, I counted ssix sseparate pairss of S’s today; ssome ssort of record? 43m 52s
  27. 12:45. I came to this late and tired, but didn’t really have any problems with it. Happening to know the right stuff helped, as it always does: ALAMEDA is another of those words that is familiar to me only from crosswords.

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