Times 26941 – Bolt in the Tail?

Author   ulacaPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I thought this was a fine specimen of the Monday puzzle, with a particular resonance for me, as 23 across are the very words used to describe my sporting endeavours as a callow six-year-old by Mr Entiknapp, the games master at Christ Church School, VW. A little bit for everyone – the linguist, the scientist and, of course, the classical armaments expert, as well as a lot of double definitions. Well, my classical pedigree – not to mention, my crossword skills – was not enough to get me over the line at 15 down, where I couldn’t think of the required word for ‘shelf’ or indeed ‘flap’, and never saw that the reversal indicator could cover the whole clue. No Old Baileys, though – I was beaten by a better man (or woman) on the day. For the record, I had all bar 15 down in 24 minutes, and struggled on for another six before throwing in the towel and taking recourse to ‘aids’. COD for me, wearing my linguist hat, must be 10 across. I’m always a sucker for a function word (e.g. a preposition or a conjunction) being clued as the literal, and here for once I was onto the setter’s ruse pretty sharpish. Only to be defeated by the bolt-chucker. A metaphor for life, perhaps.

ACROSS

1 Wind was single flute, perhaps? (9)
WINEGLASS – anagram* of WAS SINGLE
6 Iberian character, Spaniard’s back in hat (5)
TILDE – [spaniar]D in TILE
9 Dissimilar to cricketer perhaps, not cricket? (15)
UNSPORTSMANLIKE – I think this is a quirky double definition, but I am open to offers.
10 In front of both reactors and incinerators, waste bags (6)
DURING – initial letters (‘front’) of R[eactors] and I[ncinerators] in DUNG
11 As one wearing tie, proceed to the left (8)
TOGETHER – GO reversed in TETHER
13 Show after bend what’s in front of the driver (10)
WINDSCREEN – WIND + SCREEN
14 Device that destroys a great deal (4)
BOMB – DD
16 Island, not very far (4)
INCH – DD
17 Almost all numbers to sort out — that’s about a hundred to decipher (10)
UNSCRAMBLE – AL[l] + NUMBERS* around C
19 A worry Hardy character bears without end (8)
TAILLESS – A + ILL in TESS; Collins has ‘misfortune; trouble’ for the noun ‘ill’
20 Is this hotter than a smoking jacket? (6)
BLAZER – cryptic definition
23 Burning like something hot? (2,4,2,7)
AS KEEN AS MUSTARD – another incendiary CD
24 Small dog’s head, black (5)
DINKY – D[og] + INKY
25 Grandee at fancy restaurant in the open air (3,6)
TEA GARDEN – GRANDEE AT*

DOWN

1 Twisted injury(5)
WOUND – DD
2 An oldie lacking resilience without backbone (2,6,7)
NO SPRING CHICKEN – if something lacked elasticity, it would be lacking in
resilience, and if someone is without backbone they are chicken
3 Gracious virtue(8)
GOODNESS – DD
4 Key Largo’s ultimate voice (4)
ALTO – ALT + [larg]O; ESC and ALT are fast acquiring chestnut status
5 Nelson has come around, in state of semi-consciousness (10)
SOMNOLENCE – NELSON COME*; I’m mot quite sure how this works, but perhaps ‘around
in’ are operating in cryptic tandem to say ‘mix that lot up, mate – but not the “come”!’
6 One following another into accident and emergency (6)
TANDEM – as in ‘ride tandem’; the ‘into’ appears to have entered into the spirit
of things, and is saying ‘you’ll find what you want inside the next words!’
7 Something clarified about crew on call in Bedfordshire town (8,7)
LEIGHTON BUZZARD – LARD (‘something clarified’) around EIGHT ON and BUZZ
8 Awful old English king secured by rope (9)
EXECRABLE – EX + E + [R in CABLE]
12 Nut to rip off part of the engine (10)
CRANKSHAFT – CRANK + SHAFT (slang for ‘cheat / rip off’)
13 Bracelet that’s right for sweater? (9)
WRISTBAND – is there more than this than meets my eye? It seems just a CD to me
15 Shelf inside a flap that’s raised in old weapon (8)
BALLISTA – SILL (‘shelf’ as in window sill) reversed in A TAB
18 Agent keeping general quiet (6)
SLEEPY – LEE in SPY; ‘quiet’ as in sleepy village
21 Bolted boxes gathering gas (5)
RADON – DO in RAN
22 Measure of length in each book (4)
EMMA – MM in EA

72 comments on “Times 26941 – Bolt in the Tail?”

  1. Having the I in 7d, I thought that’s where the EIGHT goes, and although I had no idea where LEIGHTON BUZZARD is–I don’t know where Befordshire is, for that matter–it’s not a name one forgets. The Zs made me think ‘pangram?’, but I wisely ignored the thought.
  2. A very similar tale to our blogger with 25 mins for all but 15dn which I only worked out eventually having looked up ‘ledge’ in my thesaurus (as ‘shelf’ was not listed). I also wondered if there was more to 13dn than meets the eye. No problem with LEIGHTON BUZZARD as it’s where I live!

    Edited at 2018-01-22 06:44 am (UTC)

    1. My twin brother lives in 7dn LEIGHTON BUZZARD I will be there in May/June – I do hope we could meet up for refreshment.

      I have pressing publication dates in February hence little time but cracked it this evening in an un Mondayish time.
      At leat the longun’s were easy.

      FOI 16ac INCH
      LOI 6ac TILDE
      COD 1dn WOUND
      WOD 7dn LEIGHTON BUZZARD!

      1. Thanks for the book Horryd, looks like it will be entertaining even though the subject matter ceased to entertain me when I was in my teens.

        Shame the stamps on the parcel weren’t Chinese.

  3. Same as our blogger, only excepting that the aid I went to for Ballista was the blog.
    I did spend some time trying to figure out how ZR could be a distance, so as to give Ezra, under the philosophy that the setters are in process of working as many books from the Bible as possible into their grids in order to annoy keriothe. This time it caught me, instead.

    Edited at 2018-01-22 02:31 am (UTC)

    1. I have been lobbying setters to include books of the Apocrypha for our edification and further education. Tobit would be an obvious choice, while Esdras has a lovely ring to it, don’t you think?
      1. Careful or I will start my own lobbying campaign for the inclusion of more obscure smoking paraphernalia.
  4. Very similar experience. About 30 mins for all except the ballista, and then about 10 mins due to the same problems. Couldn’t think of sill or tab and didn’t realize the whole thing was reversed. Once I realized that I got sill and it had to be ballista, a word I don’t think I know although maybe it came up in Latin lessons a long time ago.

    Luckily I wrote Leighton Buzzard in from the L and the enumeration, and seeing call=buzz. Actually, I thought all the long clues were pretty good. Often they are obvious since there just aren’t that many 15 letter plays (look back in anger and…maybe something else) or books (for whom the bell tolls, and probably a couple more).

  5. I didn’t realize it at all, but WRISTBAND is a double definition, referring to the wristbands that people like tennis players wear to keep sweat off their hands. I got it immediately (I already had the W) but couldn’t see what it had to do with sweaters, so held off until it couldn’t be anything else.
    1. I saw that when solving, but don’t see how that makes it a DD! A sweater after all is either a garment or a person, not a band.

      Edited at 2018-01-22 03:42 am (UTC)

      1. It’s “right for a sweater,” with the question mark, that is the second definition. Like, a person who sweats could or should use it.
        1. I still don’t buy it, because the second part needs the first to make any sense! You can’t just say ‘I’ll put my right-for-a-sweater on so my racket doesn’t fly out of my hand.’
          1. I was just trying to add the following part, but couldn’t, because you had replied:

            But I am not sure either that “Bracelet” and that part are actually separate definitions.

            1. Extended definition clue I think. It’s the sort of bracelet that is right for a sweater, apparently.

              You guessed it — I didn’t think much of it either!

  6. Unlike vinyl, I did not bung this in from the def. (after all, I’ve seen it before, unless there’s another town over there that has “Buzzard” in its name), and I would very much like to say that I worked it from the cryptic, after solving TOGETHER; but, alas, the latter was my LOI and Buzzardtown only the penultimate. I lost patience and Googled “town Buzzard.”

    ( Sigh )

    But seems I’ve worked a helluva lot of puzzles lately, including the last four Jumbos (though the latest one was easy), and the New York Times weekend non-cryptics, and tomorrow’s a work day, so I’m not being too hard on myself!

  8. Turns out I was completely on the wavelength for this, finishing in a very Mondayish 4m42 even after mediocre (by which I mean slower than Aphis99*) showings on the Concise and QC. Lots that was biffable, not least LEIGHTON BUZZARD where a few of my friends live. WRISTBAND my LOI too and now I’m glad I didn’t take the time to try and parse it!

    * that is to say, quite possibly not slow at all, maybe even actively very fast – he’s a great solver!

    Edited at 2018-01-22 09:05 am (UTC)

  9. 19:45. Very much not on the wavelength, it would seem. I found this very tricky but I never really got completely stuck until the end, when a couple slowed me down a lot. One was WRISTBAND, which I think is just a cryptic definition. Not the greatest clue ever seen perhaps but not terrible either. The other, and my last in by a country mile, was CRANKSHAFT. I’ve no idea why it took me so long to see.
    In spite (or perhaps because) of my difficulties I enjoyed this a lot.
  10. Appropriate that 5d was my LOI, as SOMNOLENCE describes my state very well this morning.

    From 1a—”that could be WINEGLASS, but why?”—through my struggles with WRISTBANDs and DINKY TILDEs, everything just seemed to take a little longer than it should, and I finally came home in 45 minutes.

    It’s possible that my foggy head (somewhat connected with my birthday yesterday, and the fact that 1a sprang to mind as I bought champagne flutes from IKEA…) wouldn’t have coped well with any puzzle this morning.

    At least at 15d I remembered “tab” for “flap” from a fairly recent puzzle, I think, and then BALLISTA just appeared from somewhere, perhaps just from “ballistic”, so at least what seems to have been the trickiest one didn’t cause me too much of a problem.

    Thanks to setter and U.

    Edited at 2018-01-22 07:59 am (UTC)

    1. Belated best wishes on your birthday. A quick crossword solve or a really good celebration? I’d take the latter any time.
  11. 25 mins with the usual yoghurt etc.
    Lots of MERs (minor eyebrow raises) today – mostly due the ‘non cryptic-ness’ of 9ac, 23ac, 13dn.
    Also ‘into’ for a hidden gets an MER.
    Also ‘has’ to aggregate anagram fodder gets an MER.
    Hmmm….
    Thanks setter and Ulaca.
  12. 17:08 … same thoughts as keriothe, enjoying the struggle in parts of this offbeat puzzle. LB one of my last in — I wouldn’t have known what county it was in. And CRANKSHAFT the very last in.

    COD to TANDEM

  13. I didn’t find this that straightforward for a Monday taking 32 minutes without ever feeling stuck. I thought it was GOODNESS as I read the clue, thinking of the Peter Sellers/ Sophia Loren song Goodness, Gracious Me, but I struggled with making an abstract noun and an adjective synonymous. Definitely seemed UNSPORTSMANLIKE, but seeing my heart was going boom boodee boom, maybe I missed something. Trawling through Herts, Bucks and Beds seems to be a regular feature and LEIGHTON BUZZARD must have been named with cryptic crosswords in mind. COD WINDSCREEN, as it was staring me in the face and I could only see through it. Thank you U and setter.
    1. Whereas I thought immediately: “Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!”

      Which probably says something about my uncultured tastes.

      1. I could have picked Jerry Lee Lewis, RJC. I suspect it’s the more cultured of the two!
    2. You can find YouTube clip of Sellers interviewed by Parkinson where he quotes that ‘boom titi boom’ as his way of explaining the reason he got divorced from his first wife. it’s about 30m into the interview.
      1. Not only that but I was then treated to Peter doing his George Formby to close the show. Did you know that George Harrison was President of the George Formby Appreciation Society? “While my guitar gently weeps” must have been his take on ‘With my little ukulele in my hand.”
  14. 22 minutes saw me home, but I expected others to be much quicker as every clue, one I’d solved it, seemed blatantly obvious. Just to give the idea, WOUND and WINEGLASS were my last in bar TANDEM, which would have been TENDER (something that follows) if I could have made the cryptic work. Should have very quickly surmised that that last was a hidden. But didn’t.
    I got BALLISTA almost as a biff, but took ages to work out the wordplay, which I gave up on with WRISTBAND.
    Not without its pleasures (CRANKSHAFT tickled my fancy) but with a subtext of annoyance at my own slowness.

    Edited at 2018-01-22 08:42 am (UTC)

  16. Very nice puzzle. I wonder how many, like me, looked for the name of a song from ‘our era’ (“an oldie”) in 2d?!
    I really wanted the Hardy character to be Bathsheba but it had to be poor put-upon Tess. One day, Eustacia Vye will make an appearance, I’m sure! Very clever clueing of an anagram in 1ac. 54m 26s
  17. 22’10” today, faster than I first thought when I saw the amount of white space. LOI WINEGLASS, have always thought of wine and champagne as separate things, had GLASS and couldn’t see the rest. Spent some time trying to fit AE into 6d. Good challenge for a Monday. Thanks ulaca and setter.

  18. Enjoyed this one, though it did take about 45mins or so after a slow start and a slow end. Took ages to get the last one, where my working was: got BAT-A early doors, then spent an age trawling for SILL, then bunging it in hoping it was indeed an old weapon.

  19. No problem with this one but like others found WRISTBAND and UNSPORTSMANLIKE a bit unsatisfactory. Also thought 5D wording didn’t quite work. Liked 11A for the excellent lift and separate of “As one” from “wearing tie”.

    L-B a write in from Beds town and 8,7. It’s main claim to fame (apart from having a distinguished resident) is the Great Train Robbery that was perpetrated close to the town

  20. About 30 mins with interruptions. BALLISTA known from past playing of Civilization (with a Z), I guess computer games can occasionally come in handy. LOI DURING which took an age to work out – very clever. Thought 7d was ‘something clarified’ with somewhere like Luton in it for quite a while until I got more helpers. Didn’t know lard was clarified either, trying to work unsuccessfully with ghee…
    1. Civilization can teach you a lot about everything in life, not least that you should be very careful with nuclear weapons, and the Aztecs are not to be trusted.
  21. I thought this was a perfect puzzle with many fine clues, but my COD goes to DURING.

    Thirty-three minutes for this one, with BALLISTA my LOI. I got the “sill” quickly enough, but a tyop at 23ac (“tea graden”) held me up for a while.

  22. 12 mins, so I was pretty much on the setter’s wavelength, although nowhere near as much as V was. I knew BALLISTA so it didn’t hold me up, and SOMNOLENCE was my LOI after the WINDSCREEN/WRISTBAND/TAILLESS crossers.
  23. I live in Bedfordshire – a county which contains both the delights of Woburn and the miseries of Luton – so LB posed no problem. TOGETHER was my LOI as my “u” in “somnulence” made it somewhat impossible until I double checked the anagram. Finished in a respectable (for me) time of 20:19.
    1. 40 plus years ago I had to spend a month or so at Luton Tech, commuting from Cambridge, to get me up to speed on Chartered Accountancy exams. It always struck me that Luton seemed to be in a bowl of fog as you could come over the hill and see nothing
  24. Easy enough to solve in 20 minutes, but several unparsed – biffed the Beds town (been there but didn’t see jackkt) , DURING and SOMNOLENCE. A few weak clues I thought like 9a, 23a, 16a but some crackers too.
  25. Either my mid-morning cuppa was spiked with some sort of performance-enhancing drug, or this setter was absolutely up my street. I nearly had a Moment, when I was tempted to biff WAISTBAND as my LOI, and fortunately had sufficient doubt that I read the clue again, this saving myself from what would have been a particularly ignominious way to fall at the last.
  27. 18:31 for this mostly mondayish fare, although a couple took some parsing. UNSCRAMBLE and SOMNOLENCE my last two in…. the latter because I was sure the ‘has’ had to be part of the anagrind. I admit to biffing 7d and neglecting to parse it until after the event. A nice teaser to start the week.
  28. After 32 minutes I was left with 6a/6d. Ten and a half minutes later I submitted, but my cogitations were in vain as I came up with TILDE and TENDER. Totally missed the hidden. Irritating after unscrambling the rest of the puzzle including the unknown BALLISTA. CRANKSHAFT gave me a smile though. Thanks setter and U.
  29. Sadly, my sports master’s comment on my performance at school was not so much 23ac as 8dn.
  31. Completed in dribs and drabs but probably about 45m with long pauses on TILDE and EXECRABLE to name but two. I had the same slight reservations about the bracelet as others but a minor cavil as a I enjoyed the clueing and especially TOGETHER. Thanks for blog and puzzle today!
  32. Enjoyed the puzzle, but share the reservations about ‘somnolence’: I did try to make ‘in state’ the anagrind, but then around’ would have been superfluous. Just shrugged.
    At 6a, is a ’tilde’ actually character rather than a diacritic? Just askin’.
    1. I was going to make a frightfully clever comment about Tilde Swinton playing the role Blonde in “The limits of Control”, which was shot in Madrid and Seville, which would have made her a character in Spain, but she wrecked it by spelling her name with an A. Uncooperative.
    2. I was told recently by a Spanish speaker that the n with a tilde over it is actually counted as a letter in its own right. Not sure whether that answers your question! Richard
  33. Average Monday fare (and very welcome too) completed in two 20 mins sessions on the way to work and at lunch. I rather liked the four long ones. I was slightly held up by not spotting the anagram at 1ac, not seeing what was required at 10ac for a while, thinking that the Def in 19ac was a worry rather than without end and, not knowing 15dn, having to work it out the long way round with flaps and shelving all tipped over.
  34. QC was not too hard today and , as it’s Monday, I thought I’d look at this. As soon as I saw 7d I thought of LB and then I was off and running. I thought there were some excellent clues, it was fun. At the end I was struggling with 19a, 18d and 10a but it all came together with several unparsed guesses including Ballista. LOI and COD to DURING. David
  35. This stretched out to 25 minutes or so, held up by CRANKSHAFT and SOMNOLENCE. I should have figured out the former more quickly, but the weird cryptic construction of SOMNOLENCE took a while to sink in. Glad I remembered the LEIGHTON BUZZARD place, and somehow BALLISTA lingered in the memory banks. Regards.
  36. Sorry I’m a day late.

    3 look ups which for a newbie to the 15×15 is close to my best

    Can someone explain why ea is each? Just one of those crossword things you pick up?

    The other two – didn’t know inch was an island and ballista was unknown and relatively tricky I found from the wordplay.

    Mighty

  37. Thanks Richard. If that’s the case, it would certainly answer my question.
    To paraphrase a familiar quotation, ‘I have a little French and no Spanish.’
    1. But then what would be the meaning/purport of ‘has come around’?

      Edited at 2018-01-28 10:34 am (UTC)

  40. 15+10 minutes, with a bus ride and a work phone call in the middle. These half-time resets are very restorative. I didn’t know TILE, so had to biff the obvious TILDE. Curious that 1ac relied on double pronunciation of “wind”, while 1dn used WOUND. Thanks to setter, blogger, commenters.

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