Times 27025 – Lessons to Learn

Today I will be doing something that I have never done in my six years of blogging, namely, offering advice to the setters and the editor. This is something that I am loath to do, and I do it not because I feel in any way superior to this fine body of men and women, but because I feel it is my duty. Look at it this way. If you were strolling along a path in the Alps and saw the 45th President of the United States of America in front of you, wearing his baseball cap and composing a tweet, oblivious to the world around him, and then you looked up and saw someone about to roll a giant rock onto his head, what would you do? Well, I think we all know the answer to that. However much it hurt, you would shout out a warning. Why? Because it is the right thing to do and that trumps every other consideration.

I’m not one for naming names, but I happen to know who today’s setter is, because he’s a regular setter, well known for his scientistic belief system. And I mean that not in a pejorative way: everyone is entitled to their own wacky opinions and deserves our full respect for holding them. All I will say though is that I hope we have used up our quota of tedious scientistic references for the rest of the year. Take 19 down as an example. The setter instructs us to put an ‘unknown’ in an unchecked square. Well, the field of unknowns is large, and there is simply no way of knowing that there is a better answer than the one you first thought of if you don’t know the word. And let’s face it (and I don’t think I need to conduct a poll to assign a place to this answer’s place on the guessability scale), who in their right mind – unless of course they are a fellow traveller in the setter’s scientistic sect – is going to chance on the so-called correct answer?

Before continuing, I would like to reiterate that I have the greatest respect for setters and editors of all types and persuasions. Those who have read my witterings all these years will know that the comments I feel compelled to make here will hurt me far more than it will hurt them. But sometimes, as John Wayne tells Monty Clift in Red River, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

ACROSS

1 Maestro after formal wear clothed by worker in Next (8)
ADJACENT – DJ ACE in ANT. No product placement please, especially now I have sold my shares in Next.
5 Reverend nearly accepts uniform with new cloth (6)
VICUNA – N U in VICA[r]. Two points here: 1) the word should have a tilde over the N (please update the software); 2) the setter has missed a trick for a punning reference with Lama/Llama.
8 Invention concerning food product made from woodchips (10)
FIBREBOARD – FIB RE BOARD (food)
9 Lose penny from pocket? That hurts (4)
OUCH – [p]OUCH
10 Imbue wordplay with a twist, trapping learner rising in standard (8,6)
UPWARDLY MOBILE – L in anagram* of IMBUE WORDPLAY. Well done, setter. You have resisted the temptation to clue an obscure word or phrase with an anagram and thereby call down the eternal ire of Jupiter Praescriptivus.
11 Never time to back overthrown saint’s oppressors (7)
TYRANTS – reversal of NARY T (time) + reversal of ST. Top clue with no unnecessary tricks or obscurities. More like this, please.
13 See an elk run (7)
VAMOOSE – V (vide) A (an) MOOSE (elk). We’ll let you off the obscure abbreviation of a Latin word this time, but will monitor future use.
15 Student’s mark cut by incomplete grasp (7)
SCHOLAR – HOL(d) in SCAR. That’s more like it.
18 Tired air recycled so as to block tobacco (7)
WEARIED – AIR* in WEED
21 What pupils may have to suffer after run (4,10)
WORK EXPERIENCE – EXPERIENCE (suffer) after WORK (run – think wrist watches, if you still wear one)
22 Cinema turned my life around — coming to no conclusions (4)
FILM – M(y) LIF(e) reversed
23 Oily, fishy bisque that’s got in even pieces of coconuts (10)
OBSEQUIOUS – BISQUE* in [c]O[c]O[n]U[t]S
24 The contents of Sweeney Todd’s last thought in the past (6)
WEENED – [s]WEENE[y] (the contents of the word SWEENEY) + last letter of [tod]D. Thus Milton in Paradise Lost: ‘they weend / That self same day by fight, or by surprize / To win the Mount of God, and on his Throne / To set the envier of his State, the proud / Aspirer’. A warning to us all, I ween.
25 Like organ’s part of chorale arranged by timeless Cage? (8)
COCHLEAR – CHORALE and C* (CAGE minus the ‘age’). I once went to a ‘performance’ of John Cage’s 4’33”, memorable for the fact that the orchestra felt the need to tune their instruments before it started.

DOWN

1 Where one needs repairman to be responsible? (2,5)
AT FAULT – you might need a repairman if you have an electrical fault, say.
2 One blocking post kind about women’s hearts (9)
JOBSWORTH – JOB + W in SORT + H (hearts in bridge, say); if you don’t know what one of these is, check this out.
3 Ordinary addition to a uniform (7)
CHEVRON – double definition: in heraldry, a conventional figure on a shield; in the army, say, chevrons are used as insignia for NCOs
4 More than one fool behaves amorously, about to be dumped (7)
NOODLES – [ca]NOODLES, ca being the abbreviation for circa. More Latin, but nothing a mea culpa won’t cure.
5 See old characters are finally used for screen entertainment (5,4)
VIDEO GAME – VIDE (vide supra) + OGAM + [ar]E. Oh, dear, dear, dear! Ogam is a variant spelling of ogham, which is an ancient alphabetical writing system used by the Celts. Imagine this in a Mephisto with no enumeration!
6 Sausage is cold — and as far as one can see not new (7)
CHORIZO – C HORIZO[n]
7 Clue sun awkwardly as centre of orbital system (7)
NUCLEUS – CLUE SUN*. Hmm. Apparently orbital doesn’t just mean the M25 but in scientistic mantras is used to denote ‘the region surrounding an atomic nucleus in which the probability distribution of the electrons is given by a wave function’. Wevs.
12 One cutting sleep a bit, rising in shape (9)
TRAPEZOID – I (one) in DOZE (sleep) PART (a bit) reversed
14 Russia’s characteristic tearjerker, with accompanying notes (5,4)
ONION DOME – ONION (tearjerker) + DO (a deer, a female deer) and ME (a name I call myself)
16 Rules about a lot of whip leather (7)
COWHIDE – WHI[p] in CODE
17 Working as Roman galley slave? (7)
OARSMAN – AS ROMAN*; I would characterise this as a semi-&lit, but I am open to offers
18 Now entering World Trade Organisation. To what end? (7)
WHERETO – HERE in WTO. To what end, indeed?
19 Bearing component unknown in train, initially used too hard (7)
AZIMUTH – Z in AIM + U[sed] T[oo] H[ard]. The setter should be made to sew this word on his sanbenito.
20 One covering actor’s role in operating theatre (7)
DRESSER – double definition: one thespian, the other Aesculapian