Times 26,945: Folly To Be Wise

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I think you’ll have to forgive me for an abbreviated blog today – I succumbed and subscribed to the Magpie puzzle magazine after its annual bash last week, little realising that this would leave me only a brief window for actually doing the puzzles before the submission deadline. So I’ve been doing barred puzzles around the clock all this week, with brief breaks for the likes of the Boatman/Alan Connor cryptic books quiz and occasionally showing my face at my new job too, and it turns out I’ve got three (!) TftT blogs to write by tomorrow, a day on which there are two more crossword events in London… let’s just say I’m starting to feel rather peculiar.

Fortunately this was an easy one at least by Friday standards – I did it on paper in 5 and a half minutes according to the stopwatch, though some of the full parsings held out a bit longer afterwards: I’m looking at you, 19ac. Some of the definitions were harder I thought than others (13ac, 18ac, 25ac all giving me pause), but overall this was rather tractable, especially if you could quickly tumble the setter’s game with “European city”, “Japan’s capital”, “French painting”. I liked the pleasant level of GK in the puzzle, with Max Ernst and Paul Dirac rubbing shoulders with Rembrandt van Rijn – jokes about the three of them walking into a bar on a postcard, please. Thank you setter for a very fun puzzle, and now I’ve got to rush off and blog a Club Monthly! If any of you are out and about in London tomorrow, let me know and a pint is on me.

ACROSS
1 Three men in line, each wanting last dance (3-3-3)
CHA-CHA-CHA: a queue of CHA{p} CHA{p} CHA{p}, each “wanting” (their) last (letter)
6 Shylock’s money, mostly owed, put with kitty (5)
DUCAT: DU{e}, put with CAT
9 Mockery scars a wretched maiden (7)
SARCASM: (SCARS A*) [“wretched”] + M [maiden]
10 Society shunned by musketeer in liberal European city (7)
LARAMIE : ARAMI{s} [S for society “shunned by” musketeer] in L E [Liberal | European]
11 Bear — one sits regularly for surrealist (5)
ERNST: {b}E{a}R {o}N{e} S{i}T{s} “regularly”
12 Far from keen, Frenchman volunteers to fill breach (9)
RELUCTANT: LUC T.A. [Frenchman | volunteers] “to fill” RENT [breach]
13 Trace local banished from China for example (5)
RELIC: RE{pub}LIC [China for example, with PUB (local) “banished”]
14 Composition using organ in church — is it Bliss? (9)
IGNORANCE: (ORGAN IN*) [“composition using…”] + CE [church]
17 Staff instruction to leave something on plate (9)
MANGETOUT: MAN [staff] + GET OUT [instruction to leave]
18 Lot‘s regret voiced by Terah initially (5)
SIGHT: SIGH [regret voiced] by T{erah}
19 Relate what one remembers about car as cutting in (9)
REMINISCE: RE MINI [about | car] + S{in}CE [as, “cutting” its IN]
22 Flower to put back in boozer that’s refused husband (5)
LOTUS: TO reversed [“put back”] in LUS{h} [boozer “that’s refused” H for husband]
24 New look needing sash from Japan’s capital (7)
NAIROBI: N AIR [new | look] needing OBI [sash from Japan]
25 Do I lie with another having embraced sex appeal? (7)
IMITATE: I MATE [I | lie with another], “having embraced” IT [sex appeal]
26 Tips to help all dodging fifty per cent in tax (5)
TITHE: TI{ps} T{o} HE{lp} [all “dodging fifty per cent”…]
27 Ageless monarch good with soldiers in uniform (9)
EVERGREEN – ER G + RE [monarch | good (with) soldiers] in EVEN [uniform]

DOWN
1 Hard to be expelled from immaculate social group (5)
CHASTE – C{h}ASTE [H for hard “to be expelled from” CHASTE (immaculate)]
2 Article about Ireland transformed is rousing stuff (9)
ADRENALIN – AN [article] “about” (IRELAND*) [“transformed”]
3 Catch on handlebar perhaps causing pain (9)
HEARTACHE – HEAR [catch] on TACHE [handlebar, perhaps]
4 One choir remains in disarray whatever happens (4,4,2,5)
COME RAIN OR SHINE – (ONE CHOIR REMAINS*) [“in disarray”]
5 Where washing may be seen at every point? (3,5,3,4)
ALL ALONG THE LINE – whimsical double def
6 Wit from the south captivates one Nobel laureate (5)
DIRAC – CARD reversed [wit “from the south”] “captivates” I [one]
7 Mark sending Mike into unconscious state (5)
COMMA – M [Mike] into COMA [unconscious state]
8 Care to pay for the writer’s entertainment and books (9)
TREATMENT – TREAT ME [pay for the writer’s entertainment] + NT [books]
13 Sword beginning to tarnish beneath rising sea in French painting (9)
REMBRANDT – BRAND [sword] + T{arnish} “beneath” reversed MER [“rising” sea in French]
15 Unravelling sign lover’s given out (9)
RESOLVING – (SIGN LOVER*) [“given out”]
16 Mounted champion decapitated — it’s terrifying! (9)
NIGHTMARE – {k}NIGHT is a champion, mounted as in on a MARE; then decapitate by removing his first letter
20 Somewhat wet politicians at centre in majority (5)
MOIST – {polit}I{cians} [“at centre”] in MOST [majority]
21 Trap quickly springs up — end of mouse! (5)
NOOSE – SOON reversed [quickly “springs up”] + {mous}E
23 Flock seen aloft with grouse finally breaking cover (5)
SKEIN – {grous}E “breaking” SKIN [cover]

65 comments on “Times 26,945: Folly To Be Wise”

  1. 40 minutes, so pretty quick for me. Either this is a good week or I’m getting better in general…

    Glad I wasn’t alone in wondering what was going on at 19 even after I’d written it in, and thank you V for helping out with a few other question marks along the line. Relieved to find that Aramis was indeed a musketeer (still on my “to read” list) and not just an elderly aftershave…

    Started off well with 1a CHA-CHA-CHA (possibly helped by a recent Red Dwarf re-watch.) Finished more slowly in the SE with the crossers of 16d NIGHTMARE and 18a SIGHT (took me ages to see that definition of “lot”.) Wish I could remember which way round the I and the E go in SKEIN. Gets me every time.

    Anyway. Off to get my car serviced, so I’ll have to see if I can race the mechanics with the Guardian 15×15… Thanks to V and setter for a fun start to the day.

  2. Another quickie for me today, but was relieved to find that DIRAC and LARAMIE both came up green. Thanks for the parsing of REMINISCE. Don’t really see how IMITATE=do. Is it just short for ‘do an impression of’?

    2. “Go on, do Prince Charles again!” It seems simultaneously a bit of a stretch and clearly technically correct.
  3. 34 minutes is off target for me (just) but quite acceptable for a Friday. Didn’t really know DIRAC but assembled him from checkers and wordplay. A Google search suggests he may be the most mentioned scientist at TftT considering the few times he has appeared as an answer – only twice to date, it seems, and the last before today being many years ago. I wondered about ‘lot’ = SIGHT before thinking of ‘a lot/sight more…’.

    Edited at 2018-01-26 07:53 am (UTC)

    1. I’m not sure I’d know Dirac if the early 80s Doctor Who companion Adric hadn’t been named using an anagram of him. Does it count as a wasted youth if you use the information gained to solve crossword puzzles 35 years later?
      1. I’ve been thinking that we really need a word for working out “high art” answers purely from “low art” references. I wonder if I first heard of Aramis in Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds…
  4. 15:07. Well I found this quite difficult, with some non-obvious definitions and convoluted wordplay. I solved quite a few by finding a word that would fit, matching it to a definition and then figuring out the wordplay. This is a slow way to solve.
    No complaints though, a good puzzle.

    Edited at 2018-01-26 01:29 pm (UTC)

  5. …Paul Dirac. Or is Maths a human construct? 39 minutes but with cricket on the box. COD IGNORANCE. The man from Laramie, which over here was a hit for Jimmy Young, is now going to be in my head all day. LOI REMBRANDT, as I was looking for a sword, which I didn’t find until I found the painter/ painting. Enjoyable puzzle. Thank you V and setter.
  6. 26 minutes, so a nice, gentle end to the week.

    I’ll raise a glass to V at the wife’s birthday bash this evening. There in spirit…

  7. 18’, so an accessible Friday. Really liked MANGETOUT. Thought 13ac may be something to do with RELICTand CHINA and the allusion at 25ac before parsing it correctly. Agree with keriothe that a ‘ninja turtle’ should be part of the vocabulary. Thanks verlaine and setter.
    1. MANGETOUT has such obvious cryptic potential that I feel like it turns up in crosswords quite a lot – I’ll class it as “an oldie but goodie”!
  8. I found this a bit tougher than did Verlaine, bless ‘im, but agree a V nice puzzle. Lots of tough definitions including Lot, and some tasty and original wordplay.

    Thanks V and clever setter.

  9. 11:02 … that was fun. COD to IMITATE for the delayed gratification of the eventual penny-drop.

    Thanks setter and v, and gothic_matt for the Red Dwarf clip

  10. 14 minutes exactly. Enjoyable puzzle but a mixed solving experience. The first six across answers went straight in, a few at the end were biffed without savouring the crafty wordplay, and then two crass typos to cap it all. LARAMIE reminded me of the TV Western series of the early 60s in which the highlights for me were the lush theme tune (which I shall be humming for the rest of the morning) and the occasional song from Hoagy Carmichael.
  11. About 30 mins at the airport.
    Pleased to see Paul Dirac.
    Lot and Do and the ‘SCE’ were tricky.
    Thanks setter and V.
  13. 16.27, with the SW corner shattering the illusion that this was an easy grid. I put in REMINISCE, TITHE and IMITATE without fully understanding the play, though the penny dropped on the last while I was doing my careful check, which takes me about a quarter of the time it takes V to solve the whole thing. I’m grateful for the explanation of the other two.
    I second the motion on MANGETOUT, though the actual thing is surely just an scurrilous ploy by the French to get us to eat pea pods.
      1. There are a couple of possibilities here. One is (quite likely) that I have used a word inappropriately, in which case the Humpty Dumpty principle applies. Perhaps villainous or perfidious might have been better. Another possible reading is that you object (quite rightly) to the use of any negative term applied to the French in general, in which case I intended to say “wise and generous” and just spelt them wrong. In any case, the standard politician’s apology applies. If my words have been taken amiss I apologise unreservedly
  14. Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac and I are not acquainted but he did not escape my puzzle or my enquiry. I won’t bother anyone with his Quantum theories, but I believe he was of use to Ian Fleming on occasion.

    30 minutes on the nose.

    FOI 1ac SARCASM
    LOI 17ac M. MANGETOUT
    COD 14ac IGNORANCE
    WOD 10ac LARAMIE

    Her indoors had a shocking accident with the porridge!
    All I got was humble pie.

    Edited at 2018-01-26 10:04 am (UTC)

  15. Quite straightforward again, with only my LOI MANGETOUT giving pause for thought. Reminds me of a restaurant I saw in Southampton some years ago called ‘Mange 2’. I actually asked my wife why someone would name a restaurant after a disease before she pointed out the pun which was clearly wasted on me.
  16. We shared a LOI and your tale is very self-deprecatingly funny! Your time was excellent! Pootle on Dude!

    Edited at 2018-01-26 10:07 am (UTC)

    1. And I was in such a rush that I forgot to say – your book arrived, I haven’t had time to read it cover to cover yet due to my busy week, but thank you very much! Now that my Magpie solutions are in the post I’ll hopefully be at a suitably loose end soon…
      1. My book arrived too, many thanks horryd, I am now au fait if asked a question about King George VI unpublished stamps and my coffee table is enhanced.
    2. ditto, and thanks. Rather a beautiful thing which will enable me to pretend that I know something about stamps. Invaluable.
      1. Same here.

        I posted (no pun intended) my thanks earlier in the week but it was quite high up the page and may have been missed.

    1. I was too young for Tom Mix. Saturday morning flicks and fifties TV gave us Gene Autry with Champion the Wonder Horse, later to star on his own; Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Gabbby Hayes, Trigger and Bullet (I was a big Roy Rogers fan in the early fifties); Hopalong Cassidy; The Range Rider; then as you say The Cisco Kid just before The Lone Ranger, Tonto and Silver. By then we’d reached the sixties and Maverick, Bonanza and the like. I can still remember the cowboy outfit my Grannie knocked up from old bits of material for my fifth birthday. Best present I ever got, at least until my daughter was born on my 46th birthday.
      1. I have many happy memories of all of these! Hopalong’s horse was called Topper and Tonto rode Scout. Cisco’s horse was Diablo and Pancho rode Loco.
        1. Pancho – thank you for that memory-jogger.
          And at the end of each episode he said “Hey Ceesco, let’s went!”
          Oh dear.
      2. In the States, in the 1960s, there was quite a good TV western called Laramie. Sadly, it ran at exactly the same time as The Avengers. Cowboys or spies, SF, and Diana Rigg made for heated discussions every week.
        1. I’m trying to remember if Laramie played in UK. I can’t find that it did on Google and I didn’t watch it. The Avengers was another matter, and I certainly watched that. A bit later Diana Rigg played a theatre nude scene in Abelard and Heloise, which I’m sure of course that the plot demanded. So it was Diana without her Rigg or see Mrs Peel. In the recent ITV production of Victoria, with the beautiful Jenna Coleman in the lead role. Diana plays the redoubtable Duchess of Buccleuch. I guess it is more than half a century later!
          1. Indeed it did. Search for Laramie Theme Song on YouTube to find the music that captivated me as a teenager.
            1. Just listened to it. Sounded vaguely familiar and it’s a lovely tune. Just found it was on BBC 1959 to 1963, so don’t know how I missed it.
  18. However I confess that I remembered Athos & Porthos but couldn’t remember the other one and had to look it up. Just Bliss….
  19. One of those where at least as much time was spent justifying correct answers as spotting what they were in the first place, though as pointed out above, once you’ve spotted one “lift and separate” like the European city which turns out to be nothing of the sort, you’re on your guard for the rest of the puzzle. Pretty sure I learned about DIRAC here, because he’s one of the people who Jimbo has always vociferously put forward as deserving just as much crosswordly recognition as any of the poets and painters we get rather more regularly.
  20. do = ditto = copy = imitate
    I sat at Dirac’s feet in my student days. He used as his lecture notes the six-feet long galley proofs of his textbook.
    David B
  21. 20 minutes, I agree with V quite tractable for a Friday. Nice to see Dirac whose equations used to make my eyes water. Liked MANGETOUT and my LOI NAIROBI.
  22. 18.54 though not all parsings in clear view en route. Can recommend ‘The Strangest Man’ as a Dirac biography though the title hook may be a little unfair. (‘Nobel Laureate’ a rather tangential definer.)
  24. I struggled with the parsing at 13a, 18a and 26a, but mer-red, biffed and moved on. Lots to like in this puzzle and I crossed the line at 22:51, so rapid for me and an enjoyable end to the week. Thanks setter and V.
  25. I’m a bit puzzled by Rembrandt being a painting rather than a painter. I presume it’s because one can “go and see a Rembrandt” though that sounds like sloppy grammar. Does it mean that Ernst can also be a painting? Or am I missing something?
    1. You have it exactly. Usage drives meaning and with any luck the lexicographers follow although they seem to be a bit slow in this instance!

      Edited at 2018-01-26 02:06 pm (UTC)

      1. I think it’s a nice mislead and absolutely follows common usage: just Google “bought a Rembrandt” to see many instances.

  26. I biffed my way through this in a ( for me ) unusually quick time with scant regard for parsing or analysis. It is many a long month since a Friday puzzle was despatched so quickly chez Davest.

    Makes a nice change, though!

    Time: all correct in 20 minutes.

    Thank you to setter and blogger.

  28. 42 minutes, so pretty good for a Friday puzzle. 1a and the two long downs went in straight away, which helped.
    The only Rembrandt joke I know is one of Tommy Cooper’s.

    “I looked up in the attic and found a painting and a violin – a Rembrandt and a Stradivarius. Unfortunately, Stradivarius was a rotten painter, and Rembrandt made lousy violins.”

  29. Nice puzzle. Is it my imagination, or have we had a very good couple weeks of settings now?

    The top bit went right in, word after word, probably helped by thinking I was definitely on the wavelength when the well-known-to-me-but-possibly-abstruse Dirac showed up. The bottom bit slowed me down to about 35 minutes.

    I still don’t see sight = lot – what am I missing?

    Thanks V, thanks especially setter

    1. I was wondering if anyone would query sight/lot, as it took me a few seconds too! Google suggests the following examples:

      “Food is a sight more expensive than it used to be”

      “He’s a sight better than he was yesterday”

      A funny usage; I wonder where it came from?

      Edited at 2018-01-26 04:32 pm (UTC)

      1. Thanks, V. I had looked up “lot”, should have started with “sight”. The OED says:

        2 a.
        A show or display of something; hence, a great number or quantity…

        Not exactly etymology, but I can see the link.

  30. I finished the QC quickly today so had time for this. FOI was 9a and I got the two long down clues quickly.
    Quite a few guesses before a big hold–up in the SE. Once I got 14a (COD) I got down to my last two – 23d a guess based on parsing, and finally Sight with fingers crossed.
    Enjoyable puzzle. David
  31. 32:16 so pretty good for a Friday though most people seem to have found it a bit lighter than the fare sometimes served on a Friday. I found the bottom half trickier than the top, the SW in particular, where the full parsing of 19ac, Japan’s capital and the sword all took a while to sort out. I’ll second the recommendation of joekobi above for The Strangest Man, which is on my shelf. Gives a fully three-dimensional portrait of the man. It’s also nice to know that Dirac’s interests outside of quantum physics included Chopin Waltzes, Mickey Mouse and Cher (though probably not all three at the same time). A row with his wife was narrowly avoided when Cher’s television show clashed with the Oscars which she wanted to watch. The solution…they bought a second television set.
  32. Twenty-five minutes for this one, a good portion of which was spent trying to parse post-biff.
  33. That was a funny clue, since if you MANGE TOUT you are not leaving anything on your plate.

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